By Adele Haeg
Jessie Diggins is the reigning champion of the Tour de Ski and the American Birkebeiner and the owner of both overall and distance globes from the 2023/2024 World Cup season. Last winter, she also set the American record for most wins in a single season. And she led the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team to its most successful season ever, with six different athletes taking a total of 22 podiums.
She might disagree with the use of the word “perfect’’ to describe her 2023/2024 season, because Diggins is also a champion of the growth mindset. But she would have to agree there was some special magic glitter sprinkled over it because it was very special and magical. She swept the World Cup circuit in classic Jessie style, crazy finishes and epic falls and everything. Then there was her hometown World Cup at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis, where she pulled off a podium in the 10km skate that was as exciting and emotional for us fans in Minnesota as I know it was for her.
She accomplished each of these feats reeling from a tough summer, which she discussed during last year’s pre-season press conference. To open this year’s conference, held on Monday via Zoom from her cabin in northern Finland, she addressed her recovery before answering any questions about her training or Therese Johaug’s return to the World Cup or the opening of the 2024/2025 World Cup season in Ruka this Friday. Diggins is back, and stronger than ever.
Diggins on her mental health
“I think there might be some questions on my mental health so I just wanted to address that,” she said in her opening remarks. “First of all my leg is not shaking uncontrollably under the table, and I’m not completely covered in sweat because I’m so nervous about what everyone’s going to think, and what everyone might say, and how I might get looked at differently or treated differently because I was so open with my story.
“I feel like being vulnerable has actually let me connect in a very different way with a lot of people in this community, and it’s also really helped me grow, and I’ve had to learn a lot and rebuild myself and my mind and I feel like I’m coming back in a much stronger place.
“So I’m really, really grateful for that. And I also want to say that recovery is not this linear process. I wish it was. And you don’t get this check mark, ‘Oh you’re healed, you’re done.’ This is something where you’re going to be working on it for a long time, and I’m probably going to be working on this maybe for the rest of my life. … I’m so incredibly grateful for my care team and my teammates and most of all my family and my friends for having my back.
“So I’ve worked incredibly hard on my mental health, as if it was a full-time job actually, and I’m just really grateful to be starting the year in a much more solid place than I think I ever have before. And so I’m really excited to see where we can take this.”
Diggins started last season unsure if she would be healthy enough to race in Minneapolis. She had no expectations for her season in terms of results. Now, she is strong, and there is pressure to succeed. Diggins stated that she wants a medal in the 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay in Trondheim, but that was the only results-oriented goal that she mentioned. And though I don’t doubt she will pick up more than a couple wins this season (that is an understatement), for her it is about the process of training and competing, and her recovery too, which as she mentioned is ongoing.
“It’s incredibly hard and it’s emotional, but it’s also the most important thing you’ll ever do in your whole life,” Diggins said. “Because you can’t be there for anyone else or have a relationship or love anyone if you can’t love yourself first. So this is the single most important thing.”
The honesty and bravery from Diggins is nothing new; this is the Diggins we know and admire. It is easy to forget just how unique her ethos is. What other professional athlete at the top of her game is giving press conferences like this, in which she advocates this kind of self-love in the context of an incredibly difficult ordeal that she has had to cope with? She is handling the eyes on her with grace, though it hasn’t been easy to learn how.
“I’m still trying to get used to the amount of eyes on me,” Diggins said yesterday. “And as a people pleaser, it’s been really challenging yet necessary to figure out how to say no and how to protect not just my physical space, but my mental space and head space. So I think recovering in a spotlight is challenging, but I think just living under a spotlight is not something that I ever imagined when I was 18 years old and looking to become a professional athlete. And so that has actually been challenging for me and something that I’m adapting to and trying to learn with and grow in that space.”
Diggins on Minneapolis 2024 and last season
“I think when we started working on gaining momentum for that six years ago, it kind of felt like, Man, like, is anyone going to come to my party? … And then everyone came and everyone cared and it was amazing.
“It was just absolutely incredible and it blew me away. And I’ve never cried so many times before a race in my life. And I felt like I had won the race halfway through my warmup, which is such an incredible feeling.”
The World Cup at Wirth in February was, like I said, magic. It was Diggins’s party for U.S. skiing and everyone came ready to celebrate. I view the success of that World Cup weekend as Diggins’s single greatest achievement so far. Granted, if she hadn’t won in Pyeongchang she might not have had the same momentum to make it happen, so that performance would vie for the top spot, but regardless it was as momentous as it gets.
“To be honest, I think when I crossed the finish line in Minneapolis and took my bib off,” Diggins said on Monday, “I was like, I could retire right now, completely happy with literally everything in my entire career. And this could be it.”
“But I’m still here. And that’s because I love it. It’s because I love what I do and I love who I do it with, most of all. So I’m just excited for a year of getting to do this sport with amazing people.”
Perhaps she will remember her Minneapolis World Cup as the pinnacle of her career. But Jessie is not done yet. She’s still got work to do.
On competition: World Champs, the 2026 Olympics, and Therese Johaug’s return to the sport
For most skiers training and competition this year will be focused on Trondheim, Klæbo’s World Champs. Diggins mentioned one results-oriented goal for this season during her press conference.
“I think the ultimate holy grail would be to be part of the 4 x 7.5km relay at World Champs and to get a medal. And I think that’s something that we’ve been working towards for so, so long. And it takes every little puzzle piece coming together to make it happen, of course. And that’s why it’s so exciting and so hard to do.”
Therese Johaug is making a return this season. She and Diggins competed on the World Cup circuit together for many years before Johaug retired in 2022. To say the least, Johaug is a formidable opponent. But Diggins is not worried.
“I am so excited,” said Diggins. “Also, because I really like her and I missed getting to see her and talk to her and hang out with her. But also, I think it’s really, really cool, especially for young girls, to see professional women’s sport be done in the way that works for you and your life. So to retire, start a family, come back, or for people to race later into their 30s. I think it’s so cool for young girls to see that you can make sport your own and you can do it in the way that works for you and in the way that works for your life and still be so joyful with it and have so much fun and be fast. And so I think it’s really awesome and I think it’s really good for the sport.”
The Norwegian outlets prodding her about Johaug might have wanted a slightly juicier answer to their questions about Johaug’s return. There have been only two World Cup distance races in Diggins’s career, and one World Championships race, in which Diggins was on the podium and finished ahead of Johaug. But since Johaug has left the circuit, Diggins has been the virtually unmatched queen of distance, especially skate distance.
But Diggins makes great points, and I’m excited for Johaug’s return too. They are both gunning for the 50km in Trondheim. Johaug will keep Diggins on her toes and vice versa. Diggins will have to fight for her distance crown again.
In other news, the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan–Cortina are just around the corner, and Jessie is not the only one in her family gearing up for them.
“You know, my grandma’s training on the stair stepper at the gym in Arizona so that she can be ready to hike up the hills and cheer for me,” Diggins noted.
Last season was no fluke for Diggins but it was also a non-Champs, non-Olympics year, just the plain old Tour de Ski and World Cup circuit. The next two years there are much bigger prizes at stake than globes or 50km wins. But it’s no surprise that Jessie’s not too worried about the prizes right now. Diggins commented on what it’s like to have her family watching her race:
“We get to do this together. And we frankly don’t care if you win or lose. We’re all just here to have fun and see you put your whole heart out there. And that’s all they want. They just want to see me work hard and find joy in what I’m doing.”
On the team
“How do I want to show up for my team? How do I want to be a leader?”
Diggins emphasized team over self in many of her answers: she said that her care team, her family, her wax techs, and her teammates, who she spends half of the year with halfway across the world, are who motivate her, and that she prioritizes them.
“What I’m looking forward to this year is I’m just really excited to be starting this season in a really healthy and strong and resilient body with a healthy, strong, resilient mind,” she said. “And I’m just looking forward to having a lot of fun with my teammates and racing because I love it.”
Diggins’s team has so much momentum right now, coming off the Wirth World Cup and the winningest season in their history. The Sophia Lauklis and the Gus Schumachers have Diggins as a role model for how to lead; this team is her legacy. It is as robust right now as it has ever been, thanks in no small part to Diggins’s leadership. And that is because she’s asking questions like this:
“How do I want to help make sure the next generation can come along and kick my ass?”
On the season ahead
Diggins didn’t say that she is out for another globe, or another Tour de Ski trophy. She wants that relay medal at World Champs for sure. But she’s racing this year not because she’s not done racking up podiums but because she hasn’t found the “bottom of the well” yet.
“The reason why I race, it’s not to try to beat any one person. And so once you get to the root and try to understand why I am who I am and why I do this, it’s more like I like to dig deep and see what’s at the bottom of the well for me.”
She is still racing because she is still getting stronger and faster; competition is still as exciting as ever for her. But what motivates her in that quest for “the bottom of the well” is her love for the sport and competition and for the teams she has found through it. Amazingly, it seems that her crazy competitive drive is so powerful because it comes from love.
That love, born of Minnesota winters spent skiing in the woods with her family, is what inspires her to compete, and it’s been an inspiration for the team and the ski community too: look at the outpouring of love for the sport we saw at Wirth. That love is what Jessie stands for and is, and it is stronger now than it ever was and she is stronger now than she ever has been.
That love transcends skiing too: It looks like her opening up about her mental health, to encourage others struggling with what she’s struggling with and assure them that they are not alone. Like she said, that bravery comes from self-love and love for her community.
So Diggins is starting this season both serendipitous and bursting with love. As skiers and human beings we all have a lot to learn from her approach. Will she find what’s at the “bottom of the well” this year? Probably not. It’s clearly very deep. Who knows what’s at the bottom?
Diggins is far from done. It’s going to be quite a season. Buckle in.
You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American nordic skiing. Last season’s GoFundMe is literally the only reason why I turned a profit in year one of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year two of Nordic Insights for you to be reading now: I was okay with working for very little money to get this love letter to American cross-country skiing off the ground, but I didn’t want to lose money for the privilege of doing so. If you would like to support what remains a brutally shoestring operation, last season’s GoFundMe may be found here. Thank you for your consideration, and, especially, for reading.
