Diggins Fifth in Davos 10km Skate as Karoline Simpson-Larsen Claims First Career Win

By Angie Kell

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Sometimes, things happen in December that can’t be planned or predicted. I’m not necessarily talking about how temperatures have atypically and sadly been in the 50s (Fahrenheit) all this month where I reside in Utah. Or am I necessarily referring to the musky perfume gifted from Grandpa of all people at an early Christmas gift exchange.

With these two examples, though, one can either ignore the December oddities, or exercise some patience and assume that things will return to their rightful order: January is predicted to be wetter than normal. Maybe Grandpa isn’t the best person to assume what your olfactory preferences are anyway. And there’s always next year!

Stranger things were also present at this weekend’s World Cup stop in Davos. The high-altitude terrain at the Swiss venue is notorious for providing surprising outcomes.

Today marked the third Sunday in a row that a World Cup weekend ended with a 10-kilometer interval-start race: today in skate, for the first time this season. The venue had held the previous two days’ sprint events in the late afternoon into evening, ensuring ice at spots on the narrow, winding course. The 10km race, while held during the daylight today, offered some tricky, transformed snow conditions in the sun and shadows alike. The courses, plus the altitude of Davos, plus the ever-fluctuating roster of skiers reflecting fatigue or looming illness, ensured some results that couldn’t be predicted.

A pared-down roster from the Norwegian and Swedish teams helped a lesser-known 10km distance expert take the crown for the day. Karoline Simpson-Larsen of Norway, 28, claimed her first World Cup win in her 17th career start, with a time of 26:34.9. A sixth and eighth in Ruka distance races at the start of this season were her previous career bests.

Simpson-Larsen started slowly but turned on the jets over the last few kilometers to overtake her fellow countrywoman, Astrid Øyre Slind, who led the race at every time check aside from the finish. Slind would fade ever so slightly to take third place for the day in 26:37.1. Coming in a single tenth of a second ahead of third was Moa Ilar of Sweden, who secured second place with a tactic resembling that of the winner — a measured start followed by an increase in intensity. She would finish between the two Norwegians in a time of 26:37.0. This was 2.1 seconds back of Simpson-Larsen and a tenth of a second up on Ilar. Every second counts out there.

Team USA’s Jessie Diggins was the top American finisher today, taking fifth place with a time of 26:45.2. Diggins’s splits revealed a seemingly even effort, as she maintained fourth or fifth position throughout both of the two 5km loops. It did, however, make for the first weekend of the 2025/2026 season where Diggins did not snag a podium spot.

Diggins unlikely cared about this aforementioned little factoid. 

“I felt awesome today,” Diggins told Nordic Insights. ”My body felt really good, my energy felt good, and I was really proud of how I skied it. I actually think this is one of the best, in terms of how I felt and how I felt I skied it, Davos 10k’s ever, which was a really fun way to end it here so I’m super grateful for that.”

Next finisher for the Americans was dual nordic skier/biathlete Luci Anderson of Team Birkie, in her fifth career (skiing) World Cup start. Anderson notably placed 25th in 27:58.6. 

“I have been training my normal biathlon way!” Anderson wrote to Nordic Insights on how she prepped for this time on the “other” World Cup. “The last two weeks before coming to Davos I was in Östersund for biathlon World Cup, so I was focused on those races. Coming into this week I adjusted my mindset towards purely skiing, so I did an interval set on Tuesday to prepare myself for the continuous racing effort, as opposed to in biathlon where I need to factor in the shooting stages. The sprint Saturday was definitely a wake up call for my body, since I haven’t done short races like that since last season. But the 10k is a similar effort to what I get to do in biathlon so I was pretty confident with my fitness going into it!”

She continued: “Up next for me is a biathlon IBU cup this week in Lenzerheide, very close to Davos so that was convenient for travel. And after that I will be racing US biathlon Olympic trials first week of January at our Olympic venue in Antholz. 

“My strategy for today was to go out controlled, trying to go a pace that felt more like a threshold for the first big 2.7k climb. I knew that at altitude it would feel like I was going slow, but it meant that I had more to give for the second half of the race. The snow was a little slower than I expected, but very treacherous on the downhills with some icy turns in there. The biggest downhill honestly looked like a GS course with a big net and spray paint on the edges of the trail.

“Overall a great race and I’m super happy with how I executed it!”

Julia Kern wasn’t too far behind Anderson, in 30th, in 28:12.5, and appeared to have a very smart and measured day on skis.

When asked by Nordic Insights to reflect upon the day, Kern told us, “My plan was to start fast today and settle into a good pace, pushing the transitions and upper part of the course. Based on my splits I paced it evenly which is good, but my top-end gear is still a work in progress.”

Next American finisher was 29-year-old Alayna Sonnesyn, of Team Birkie, in 33rd, in 28:33.3. Sonnesyn, who has not been afraid to discuss the perils and fears of racing at altitude, told us of her race: “Today I focused on skiing really smooth and never getting frantic — I think skiing frantic at altitude is how you can blow up. So I found a pace where I was pushing hard but just below my red line for the entire 10k-this is usually the hardest type of racing for me-I like to push hard, recover, and push hard again. But I’ve been working on this in training a lot and so I’m really proud of my effort today.”

The fifth member of Team USA to round out the top 50 was APU’s 23-year-old Kendall Kramer who placed 44th, despite falling on the icy downhill, in 28:56.5. Of her strategy, Kramer told us, “I like to start relaxed in altitude and ramp up the second lap (I’ve experimented through my RMISA racing years). That usually works well, and it definitely worked today. I wish the race was another lap to make up time because I just kept feeling better and better!”

Kate Oldham was the last American finisher, in 56th place. Veteran skier Rosie Brennan started the race in bib 29, her first race of the weekend, but pulled out of the race after the 6.7km checkpoint. Brennan, who has been handed the trials and tribulations of mysterious health issues over the past season-plus (not to be confused with the initially undiagnosed mono that saw her racing poorly in the 2017/2018 season and cut from the national team as a result), told Nordic Insights that this was in fact the reason for her DNF.

“I continue to have issues with blood flow in my leg,” she said. “I’ve worked extremely hard to figure things out and get myself back and it’s been unbelievably heartbreaking and challenging to continue to struggle with unknown things.”

Perhaps the next two weeks will bring low temperatures with record-breaking snowfall to Utah, no one buys anyone perfume for Christmas, and Rosie will find good health to resume her form. Just like old times.

World Cup skiing now takes a two-week break for the holidays. Racing resumes on on December 28 in Toblach, Italy, when a skate sprint kicks off the 20th running of the Tour de Ski.

Diggins continues to lead the women’s overall World Cup standings after this weekend, with 644 points. Ilar follows closely with 630 points, and Sweden’s Jonna Sundling stands in third with 537 points. Diggins also leads the distance points, with 475 points to Ilar’s 456. Ebba Andersson, also of Sweden, is third there with 412 points. Julia Kern is the second American woman in both standings, 32nd in the overall and 38th in distance. Finally, Diggins is 11th in the sprint league table, with Kern 21st.

Full results from today can be found here.

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