By Gavin Kentch
Extrapolating from Jessie Diggins’s current foray into mountain running, she will be entering the Marathon des Sables by the end of the decade. This is the only logical conclusion from the skier’s last two years’ worth of trail racing at the Broken Arrow Skyrace in North Lake Tahoe.
In 2024, Diggins undertook a sui generis 69-kilometer race in Olympic Valley, doing three laps of a 23km course on a day when the official race covered only two laps (she did this with the blessing and buy-in of race organizers, so long as she met an intermediate cutoff time). Diggins was steadily in ninth out of 164 women through 46km, or first of one in the 69km division at the finish, depending on your perspective.
[Read more: Now Even Bigger and Stupider: Jessie Diggins Breaks Her Own Trail in Broken Arrow Skyrace (from 2024)]
This year Diggins played things more by the book, albeit an arduous book, entering the Triple Crown division of the Broken Arrow race weekend. This involved racing a hill climb on Friday, the 46km on Saturday, and the 23km on Sunday. The three races were, respectively, 3.5km long with 1,800 feet of elevation gain; 46km with 9,000 feet of gain; and 23km with 4,500 feet of elevation gain. By my math, that is a total of 72km of racing and approximately 15,300 feet of climbing within roughly 48 hours.
Diggins placed as high as the 27th woman in the individual races. She was the fifth woman, out of seven, in the overall Triple Crown standings when things wrapped up on Sunday. Finisher numbers for the Triple Crown were greatly limited this year due to severe mountain weather on Saturday that forced the cancellation of the 46km after just 163 of 553 athletes had finished. There was thunder snow, it appears, and race organizers closed the course before ushering athletes indoors and shepherding them to safety. Nature always bats last, as they say.
Turning to results:
The women’s winner of Friday’s ascent was Anna Gibson of Wyoming, in 27:32, with Joyce Muthoni Njeru of Kenya second in 29:06 and Jade Belzberg of British Columbia third in 29:23. Diggins was 27th in the women’s field for the ascent, and 99th overall, in 33:33. She is listed throughout the weekend’s results as being from Wakefield, Massachusetts, a small town outside of Boston, reflecting the fact that, well, that is where she currently lives, along with husband Wade Poplawski. (That said, she hailed from “Afton, MN,” in the 2024 results, fwiw.) Don’t tell your Twin Cities ski friend about her address change.
The women’s winner of Saturday’s two-lap 46km was Jennifer Lichter of Montana, in 4:42:32. Helen Faulkner and Daniella Moreno, both of California, were second and third in 4:43:08 and 4:43:48. Diggins was 28th in the women’s field, this time 77th overall. Only 48 women and 115 men were able to finish on Saturday before conditions shut things down.
Finally, athletes were back for more on Sunday with the single-lap 23km. Several racers at the top of the field did the ascent on Friday before coming back on Sunday. Njeru and Gibson each claimed their second podium of the weekend, with Njeru winning in 2:01:16 and Gibson third in 2:03:46. Second on Sunday was Florea Monica Madalina of Romania, in 2:02:03. (Belzberg also raced again, finishing in seventh.) Diggins was 42nd here, in 2:54:08, 142nd overall.
The top four women in the field all came in under the old course record for the 23km of 2:06:18, set by some rando named Sophia Laukli in 2022.
I have not reached out to Diggins for comment here and so I cannot affirmatively state how she was feeling on Sunday. That said, I feel comfortable surmising that she took to the start line for her third race in three days with, shall we say, tired legs. The 46km and 9,000 feet of gain on Saturday probably had an effect. As did starting at 6,200 feet and going as high as 8,857′ midway through the course.
As noted, Diggins placed fifth, of seven, in the women’s Triple Crown standings, which combined athletes’ time across three days of racing. First here went to Amanda Basham of Boulder, with a cumulative time of 8:04:17. Diggins was slightly less than an hour back in 8:57:52. Only seven women and 34 men completed the Triple Crown this year, given the meteorological limitations placed on Saturday’s event and its subsequent decimation of the field.
Other notable nordic names on the weekend included:
- David Sinclair, a Green Mountain Valley School and Dartmouth nordic skiing alumnus, fifth in the Ascent and second in the 46km.
- David Norris, a man who probably needs no introduction in these pages, 13th in the 46km, fading after a strong first lap (see above Instagram post).
- Luka Karnickis, a junior who skis with Tahoe Endurance, 63rd in the Ascent (out of 285), not bad for age 16.
- Etienne Bordes, coach and visual media at Tahoe Endurance, third in the 18km.
- Grayson Murphy, better half to retired sprinter Logan Diekmann, fifth in the 46km.
- Tilde Bångman, currently on the ski team at the University of Colorado, ninth in the 46km.
- Quinn Lehmkuhl, a Colorado skiing alumna and co–head coach at Tahoe Endurance, 35th in the 46km.
- Anna Gibson, first in the Ascent and third in the 23km, as noted above, was your U18 champion in the girls 10km classic at 2017 Junior Nationals in Lake Placid before switching her focus to running in college.
Fine print for this section: “notable” is not a term of art here; if your favorite skier or skiing-adjacent athlete was not included, nothing personal. Also, all places are given per gender, save for Sinclair and Norris, who finished in those places overall.
In conclusion, here are some photos and video of Jessie Diggins. Credit for all: Leann Bentley of USSS, who was in Tahoe for the weekend for race support. Diggins was also supported by Bernie Nelson, World Cup Service for the national team, and Kristen Bourne, World Cup Coach. I’m sorry that the video previews are blurry, but the videos themselves are not.
(The above paragraph has been edited to reflect the fact that Kristen Bourne’s current job title for the national team is “World Cup Coach,” not “D Team Coach.” I regret the error.)
Results (all races)
Additional coverage: iRunFar / adventure.com / Athletics Weekly
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