By Angie Kell
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Today’s women’s 10-kilometer classic interval-start race was arguably one of the more anticipated stages in the 20th annual Tour de Ski. This one came on the second day of the six-stage event, in Toblach, Italy.
While it’s not an event that will be featured at the 2026 Milan–Cortina Olympics, skiers competing at the Tour de Ski aspire to demonstrate their technical versatility and supreme fitness in both sprint and distance events, and one key race in building this résumé is a sound showing in a classic style, middle-distance race such as the one held today.
One thing assured about the 10km classic format is that it’s long enough to be brutally painful. The nature of the pain is up to the skier themselves: Should one pick a ferocious pace and hang on for dear life? Or does one ski the first lap hard for an early lead and then settle into the second lap at tempo? Or does one ease into the day and then press on the gas pedal on the second lap, en route to, hopefully, a negative-split finish?
The balance between speed and stamina, ski grip and glide, is often the struggle, as well as what makes this race so compelling to watch: It’s anyone’s guess as to which tactic will prove to be the best on any particular day. Following a long day of skate sprint racing yesterday, many tactics were tested today with presumably heavy legs, in advance of four more days of racing coming up before Sunday.
Early in the race, Sweden’s Frida Karlsson chose scenario one above: aggressive pacing from the start gun. Karlsson won the first 10km classic race of this 2025/2026 season, in Ruka in November, and was likely emboldened by her strategy and previous success. Indeed, by the 2.1km split today, Karlsson had a sizeable lead of 8.1 seconds over second-place Astrid Øyre Slind of Norway, and was awarded 15 bonus points for her efforts.
By the 3km mark, however — less than two minutes later — Karlsson’s strategy started to come undone. Her explosive energy started to fade, and she now maintained a lead over Slind of just 0.8 seconds. Astonishingly, this lead transformed to a 12.7s deficit to Slind by the 5km time check, less than six minutes later. Karlsson fell into fourth position overall.
Karlsson was able to salvage enough remaining energy to stay clear of fifth through much of the race, but finally slid down into fifth with 2km left to go. She would finish 35.7 seconds back of Slind, while classic specialist Kerttu Niskanen would pip her for fourth, 33.2 seconds back.
Slind, known for her smart pacing tactics (option three above), largely owing to her extensive background in Ski Classics and late-30s experience, is a contender for the overall Tour de Ski trophy. Slind finished second to then-teammate Therese Johaug in last year’s edition of the Tour de Ski and undoubtedly knows what it takes to optimize her chances of wearing the gold jersey at the conclusion of the Tour.
Amidst the early jockeying for position by Karlsson and Slind, two skiers emerged who are equally pegged as contenders for the overall Tour de Ski trophy: Austria’s Teresa Stadlober, who was 8th overall in last year’s Tour, and Jessie Diggins, who was third last year. Diggins previously claimed the overall Tour de Ski win in both 2021 and 2024, still the only American man or woman to do so.
Both skiers appeared to ease into the race (also option three), if such a thing existed, as Stadlober was 11th at the first time check, and Diggins 17th. But by the 5km time check, the pair had moved through the field as Stadlober advanced herself into second place, 4.9s back from Slind, with Diggins just 7.5s behind Slind in third.
Through 8km mark, the order remained, with Slind taking a little more time from both Stadlober and Diggins as the final kilometers passed. Slind was able to capitalize on the time margin at the finish, winning the race in a time of 25:33.7.
Stadlober finished 7s behind Slind, with a time of 25:40.7, and Diggins returned to the podium in a classic race with a third-place showing in 25:42.5, 8.8 seconds back. (Her first World Cup classic win came here, in last year’s Tour, in the 15km mass start classic race. Her first classic podium came earlier in her career than you may think, in Canmore in the Ski Tour Canada at the end of the 2015/2016 season.)
The bronze finish catapulted Diggins to first place in the overall Tour de Ski competition with a time of 27:45, overtaking yesterday’s winner, Kristine Stavås Skistad, who now sits in 33rd. Slind is in second place in the overall standings, 39 seconds back in 28:24; she also leads the Best Climber contest. Coletta Rydzek is six seconds back of Slind for third, with an adjusted cumulative time of 28:30.
Diggins said of her race in the mixed zone, “I was super surprised to hear I was fighting for the podium. I was just trying to ski smooth and as smart as possible and try to have my best classic technique so I can retire liking classic.”
When asked of her plan for the remaining four days of racing, Diggins remarked, “I just take one day at a time, you never know what’s going to happen, and you just have to enjoy every day and do your best.”
She also mentioned plans to “eat a lot of pizza tonight and rest tomorrow and probably just hang out with Julia watching Netflix.”
Team USA teammate Julia Kern is the last member of the American women’s team remaining in the contest, despite suffering from food poisoning during the Christmas break; Alayna Sonnesyn headed back to the states and Luci Anderson has to go to biathlon trials just down the road in Antholz.
Kern finished the race in 27:30, 41st place overall. Kern’s splits revealed a patient, steady philosophy as she consistently improved her positioning through each time check.
When Nordic Insights inquired as to how she was feeling after the illness, Kern reported, “I think my energy has returned, or at least day to day I feel normal. It’s sometimes hard with these things to know exactly if it’s from rebounding from food poisoning or if it’s just the lack of preparation or non-ideal preparation. But today my energy felt pretty solid in the race.”
Kern expanded upon the day and the venue: “The course was hard today. I think Toblach is always a tricky puzzle, where it’s not at altitude but it’s not at sea level so you do feel it — but it’s not quite altitude racing. There’s a lot of transition and doublepole, so you really have to be nuking the whole time, and there’s the question of whether you get in or out of the track today too. There’s just a lot of working sections and not that much rest on this course, so I think you saw different pacing strategies out there and it’s always a tricky one where you need glide and really good kick.”
As to her strategy for building strength and fitness throughout the duration of the Tour de Ski, Kern told us, “I often race better with multiple races back-to-back and that’s one reason I love the Tour. I think a lot of races sometimes just helps get my body into that race mindset so I’m hoping that I continue to build through the tour. And it’s also part of my peaking plan: I use it to get in better shape, have a high intensity block of racing and then take some rest to absorb it and build from there.”
Varying tactics and racing strategies to adorn the most versatile skier with the yellow bib continue on Wednesday with stage three of the Tour de Ski, still in Toblach. Following a rest day on Tuesday athletes will contest the 5km mass start skate race, with heats of 20 to 30 athletes, the first such race of its kind on the World Cup.
Results: stage two | overall Tour standings
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