Judge ’em While They’re Down: An Interview with The Diggins Collapse Index

By Gavin Kentch

If The Diggins Collapse Index did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him (apologies to Voltaire). The anonymous Instagram account launched roughly three weeks ago, during the Ruka season opener, and quickly became required reading for a certain class of the nordic commentariat.

The site’s bio duly explains, “Ranking the most dramatic finish line collapses of the 2024/2025 FIS Cross Country Ski World Cup. Named after the reigning champion Jessie Diggins.” But the concept is frankly pretty self-explanatory: Jessie Diggins falls down at the finish line. A lot. And writhes. And gasps. And generally reacts poorly if people touch her in that moment.

One theory of this practice is that Jessie Diggins is a unique athlete who pushes herself harder than anyone else, and so possesses a finish-line routine commensurate with those efforts. Another theory is that, while Diggins is hardly faking her fatigue, the rest of the field of world class athletes around her also push themselves to roughly comparable levels, they just express this differently at the finish.

The Index, it seems safe to say, is not a fan of the more restrained comportment associated with the latter approach. In a recent Seder-Skier podcast with Ryan Sederquist, The Index was asked about a quote by Sophia Laukli along the lines of, “Some people just decide to dig their grave at the finish line. I mean, I feel like I’m really tired, too.”

The Index politely pointed out that the leaders in its proprietary index at the time were Jessie Diggins and Harald Østberg Amundsen who were, not coincidentally, also leading the less prestigious “World Cup overall standings,” as well as possessing overall globes for the 2023/2024 season.

“Seems to The Index that there is a strong correlation between performance on The Index driving good performance on the overall World Cup,” it continued. “So perhaps Sophia Laukli should consider revising her approach to finish-line performances if she wants to move up the World Cup standings.”

The interviewer pushed back with the counterexample of one Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who has historically fared well under such more traditional matrices as “most men’s World Cup wins all time” while generally shrugging his way across the finish line with a mien bordering on boredom, preemptively removing his pole straps and looking for all the world as if he is already contemplating what he will have for dinner that night.

“He’s the greatest skier of all time,” Sederquist suggested.

“He’s obviously not the best skier of all time since he has zero index points,” riposted The Index. “The Index has nothing else to say about Klæbo. The Index is unimpressed with Klæbo.”

So there you have it.

Anyway. The Index first came to public attention on November 30. Its gnomic pronouncements quickly shot around the nordic ski internet like samizdat. I first followed the account on, I think, December 5; at that time it had roughly 250 followers. These already included five separate people working in the U.S. Ski Team wax truck, including Diggins’s longtime coach Jason Cork; you can be assured that Jessie Diggins is aware of her namesake metric.

The account now has slightly over a thousand followers. This includes basically everyone you know in American skiing who has an Instagram account, plus several members of the World Cup pro peloton. No, Diggins does not follow it, but she follows few if any news accounts; she has previously followed both @nordicinsights and @fasterskier, for example, but does not currently follow either. (I have nothing snarky to say or imply about this; I can think of multiple valid reasons why a visible and media-conscious star would not want to read what news outlets are saying about her, or what readers are saying in the comment sections of same.)

The identity behind the site remains a closely kept secret. The Index spoke with Sederquist in an audio-only interview using a voice modulator as if it were a confidential informant, which (a) was hilarious and (b) speaks to the value The Index places on anonymity. Relatedly, I conducted this interview with The Index via written interrogatories, which is lawyer-speak for, “I emailed them some questions and then they wrote back to me.”

I promise that The Index is not me. It is not Ryan Sederquist. Given my time zone forensics, The Index is located in North America; it is clearly closely attuned to the World Cup circuit, but was not traveling with it during Period 1.

Going into the holiday break between World Cup Period 1 and the Tour de Ski, one Jessie Diggins enjoys a healthy lead in the Diggins Collapse Index standings. The American currently has 25 points through nine races; Amundsen is second with 18.5, and the emesis-inclined Jan Thomas Jenssen third with 14.5. In clearly related news, Diggins and Amundsen once more lead the women’s and men’s World Cup overall standings.

An “actual prize for the full season winner” has been promised. “It’s going to be a good prize,” writes The Index. I can only imagine.

My interview with The Index follows below. All questions and answers are presented verbatim.

Nordic Insights: Let me start things out simply here, with the metaphysical theology of it all. The Index told Ryan Sederquist, “The closer one is to God, the more anonymous one must remain.” And The Index has previously written on Instagram, “The Index is indeed sent directly by God to bring His teachings to the world cup circuit. St. Index blesses you all. Unless you don’t collapse across the line.” So: Is The Index a human? A god? A demigod? A prophet? How close to godhead is The Index, anyway?

The Index: The Index can’t be accurately described by any earthly language. The Index contains multitudes. The Index represents the faith. The Index is a self-contained entity but also represents the minds of the followers.

Nordic Insights: Is The Index omniscient? Omnipotent?

The Index: Rather than boast about The Index’s knowledge, which is clearly massive, The Index will simply identify as “infallible” choosing to define “infallible” as “always effective.” The Index does not claim to be omniscient, although the Index has yet to make a prediction that has not come true. Please refer to The Index’s proclamation that Team Sweden would have a bad Lillehammer weekend, which did indeed transpire.

The Index is not yet omnipotent, although as the reach of The Index increases, The Index improves from 99%-potent to truly omnipotent. The Index knows that the eyes of every world cup ski race viewer are open not only to the human but to The Index as well. Like in that James Bond movie where Blofeld has the fake eyeball in someone else’s skull that he uses to see what’s going on. But not exactly. 

Nordic Insights: My understanding is that there are four aspects to The Index: drama, scored from 1 to 10; duration, which starts at 0 and has no upper limit; help, where 1 point is awarded for each person assisting; and a bonus, which is scored at The Index’s discretion.

Assuming that I’m correct here so far:

Can The Index defend its assertions, in the SederSkier interview, that “The Index is objective” and that “There is no ambiguity in the Index’s scores”? On my reading, “duration” is a strictly temporal measure, while “help” is a quantitative one; no issues there. But isn’t “drama” necessarily inherently subjective? The Index noted that drama is scored from 1 to 10, “where 10 is the high drama.” Can The Index walk me through an objective measure of “high drama”?

The Index: Were The Index “fallible” as defined earlier, the drama score would be subjective. However, because The Index is infallible (citation: previous paragraph), the drama score is objective. Your mistake is that you continue to define The Index based merely on human characteristics. The Index encourages you to expand your mind.

Nordic Insights: The NFL has for years now seen increasingly choreographed touchdown celebrations. These have recently spread even to non-scoring plays, as when Vikings DB Camryn Bynum and safety Josh Metellus broke out an elaborate version of the Parent Trap handshake following an interception. (Inasmuch as the game was played in London, the celly choice was clearly premeditated.) Does The Index dream of a world in which World Cup skiers similarly plan out their post–finish line antics? What would The Index make of a multi-athlete routine in which, say, relay legs one through three waited at the finish for their anchor, then enacted a bowling ball celebration like this one? What if the entire team and support staff infiltrated the finish zone, incurring FIS’s wrath along the way, to increase the numbers?

The Index: Please note that The Index scores drama out of 10, while also recalling that the highest drama score this season is merely a 6. And even that six has only been attained once. This should indicate that The Index feels there is a lot of space left at the top of the drama scale. The Index values creativity. The Index values antagonistic behaviors, and The Index strives to model good behavior by repeatedly and aggressively heckling specific athletes by name. The Index appreciates a good show. Based on that information, The Index will let athletes determine what is required to hit higher marks.

Embed from Getty Images

I would like to point out the caption for the above Getty Images embed begins, “Jessie Diggins of Team United States celebrates winning silver,” which, lol.

Nordic Insights: I know that The Index has said it was still refining its algorithm at the time of the 2022 Olympics (i.e., when Jessie Diggins claimed her food poisoning/frozen eyeballs 30km silver), and I respect that. Even if The Index is not prepared to bestow a score for that, would The Index agree that Diggins in Beijing with the eyeballs was effectively the Platonic ideal of the genre? High drama, lengthy duration, and I’d swear five different people assisting her at the finish line. I mean, Diggins was literally carried out of the venue wrapped in a blanket. Can that be topped? Should we want it to be topped? Are there some finishes that are just too great for our human minds to understand?

The Index: Many finishes are too great for your human mind to understand, Gavin. Some finishes are too great even for the minds of your readers to understand. Fortunately, The Index is not simply a human mind. This is why The Index has bestowed you all with these insights.

The Index does not retroactively score races in a public fashion, so the Diggins 2022 Olympics will never receive a score. The Index is thoroughly certain that the 2022 Olympics collapse can be topped.

The Index has been contacted by multiple world cup coaches who have had questions about The Index. With this increased focus on The Index by the field’s most qualified professionals, be assured that better performances are to come in the future. Just as the four minute mile was considered the pinnacle of performance in 1954, with advances in training and nutrition, the four minute mile is now commonplace. Should performances on The Index not improve, national ski federations will look critically on their top coaches and, eventually, underperforming coaches will be sacked.

Nordic Insights: Speaking of Ancient Greek, our English word drama comes from the Greek verb draein, which means “to do.” Greek tragedy, in its original form, was simply people doing things. Can The Index give some examples of people doing things that would likely score well under the drama criterion?

The Index: The Index encourages its followers to review previous scores to create a list of “dramatic actions.” In general, The Index likes to see collapses as close to the line as possible, ideally blocking other skiers. Volume of snow in the air helps the scores. Amount of space occupied after the collapse helps the scores. There are many other criterion, some of which will be further detailed in this very writing.

Nordic Insights: Keeping things in an etymological vein for a moment here, index comes, ultimately, from the Proto-Indo-European root *deik-, which means not only “to show,” but also “to pronounce solemnly.” What does The Index feel that it is showing when it engages in the solemn pronouncements that characterize its œuvre?

The Index: The Index would like to know how long it took you to research and write these questions.

[Hahaha. Touché. Honestly, not that long at all; I have an underused Classics B.A. alongside my underused J.D. I retain an increasingly rusty reading knowledge of Ancient Greek, and wrote my thesis on Aristophanes and his relationship with Greek tragedy. My dork points are a whole lot better than my distance points, which should be pretty apparent to anyone who has ever read my writing or watched me race.]

Embed from Getty Images

Nordic Insights: Will The Index ever have any love for the Hugo Lapalus snot-stache, the all-world facial effluvia of Iivo Niskanen, and so on? That is, is there an aesthetic aspect to any criterion here? And if not, can The Index defend that omission?

The Index: Facial expressions and discharges are one of the many criteria that The Index values. Collapsing with floppy limbs akin to a toddler having a tantrum is another such aesthetic measure. The Index does not overweight true medical issues, so a legitimate fainting spell is scored in accordance with The Index’s existing methodology.

Nordic Insights: Back, once more, to Diggins, the omphalos of so many things in American skiing. Does The Index think that Jessie knows of it? (This seems pretty well assured, given that Cork was among the first 200ish people to follow the account, and that when I followed there were already at least five people in the U.S. wax truck who followed The Index.) Does The Index think that she finds this enterprise respectful? Disrespectful? An homage?

The Index: The Index assumes Jessie Diggins knows of The Index. The Index transcends Jessie Diggins. If Diggins indicates any displeasure with the current colloquial naming of The Index, The Index will simply change the name slightly. Although The Index is antagonistic, The Index is also respectful. 

Update, December 21: Diggins posted this to her Instagram story a few hours after this article went live:

Nordic Insights: Does The Index have a sense for how many World Cup skiers are aware of it? Its followers currently include Victoria Carl and Astrid Øyre Slind, so there has clearly been some uptake on the circuit.

The Index: The Index does not spend much time reviewing the Instagram followers. The Index prefers to apply time to benefitting the sport. Worrying about Instagram follower counts is for “influencers.” The Index is not and will never be an “influencer.” The Index is influential, but not an influencer. It’s a subtle difference. 

Nordic Insights: The Index noted in its recent interview that Diggins is its eponym because she “is the best collapser, both statistically and just emotionally.” Is there any space for emotion in The Index’s scoring matrix, and if so, how?

The Index: Emotion is part of the drama score. The Index will continue down this path in the next answer.

Nordic Insights: Sadie said on Devon’s podcast a few years back — this is just a paraphrase, not a direct quote — that some people are more introverted in their suffering, while Diggins is more of an extrovert. Does The Index feel that everyone has the potential for such extroversion inside them? Does The Index think that the very existence of The Index could spur athletes toward new forms of finish-line behavior?

The Index: The Index feels that the current world cup scoring mechanisms are inferior and poorly planned. With The Index, athletes are, finally, for the first time in skiing’s history, motivated towards top performance and good behaviors. The Index does not feel that being an E or an I on a personality test has any impact on finish line collapsing. This pigeonholing and labeling of people has no place in cross country skiing. Everyone who crosses the finish line should feel empowered to let their best collapse out. The Index is inspiring.

Nordic Insights: Who are some of The Index’s favorite World Cup skiers, and why? Also, can The Index speak to those “athletes that The Index does not particularly like who will be scored accordingly” when they enter The Index (quoting again from the podcast)? If not their identities per se, then at least the reasons why they are distasteful to The Index?

The Index: The eye(s) of The Index are on the French skiers, especially on the men’s side. As mentioned earlier with Lapalus, the French have a propensity for bodily fluids and seem to be quite dramatic. The Index has, for a long time, liked the Jules Chappaz start line gesture. This appears to be Chappaz pulling out his antennae as if he was an alien (à la Quentin Richardson circa early 2000s NBA) but it’s not precisely that. The Index would like to know exactly what Chappaz is doing. Safe to say Chappaz is on The Index list of favorites. 

The Index also appreciates skiers with interesting or entertaining names that are fun to say. Jasmi Joensuu. Kaidy Kaasiku. Niilo Moilanen. Silje Theodorsen. These are all excellent names. There are more. 

Finally, The Index is a giant fan of any athlete who wears less clothing than is typical given the weather. Astrid Oeyre Slind is the current best at this. 

However, without a qualifying hip-to-snow touch post finish line, The Index is unable to score any of these intangibles in isolation.

The Index does have a naughty list as well. However, The Index is still debating internally about how to handle these athletes. The Index is diligent.

Nordic Insights: If The Index could make one change to the raw feed of World Cup broadcasts, would it be a dedicated wide-angle finish-line camera, or something else?

The Index: Yes, The Index would like to be able to see the entire finish zone for the entire race. This is a simple implementation. The production crew should add a user-controlled webcam to the finish area and let The Index control it. You heard it here first: The Index will buy the camera and pay a reasonable cost per week to have it set up. If it doesn’t work, The Index will “throw shade” at an increased level as the kids say. 

Nordic Insights: In closing, if followers wish to bring things to The Index’s attention — it is clear from the recent post regarding a treatise on Jan Thomas Jenssen, and subsequent rescoring, that The Index is responsive to its fans — how should they be presented? Is just Insta DM preferred here, or is there something else that works better?

The Index: The Index is for the people. The Index accepts feedback. The Index finds the Instagram comments and direct messages a perfectly cromulent way to communicate. The Index has received some pleasantly creative follower suggestions about scoring and the future of The Index. The Index appreciates this. 

Nordic Insights: Many thanks for your time.

The Index: Many thanks for your well-researched questions!

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 years one and two of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year three 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.