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By Devin L Ward
The penultimate stage of the Tour de Ski today was a classic sprint in Val di Fiemme, the same Val di Fiemme that we will see in a few weeks at the Milano–Cortina Winter Olympics. The course, somewhat changed from last year’s World Cup stop here, is wind-y, challenging, and long, about 300m longer than the previous version.
Both Julia Kern and Jessie Diggins had thoughts today on the course, which was 1,208 meters long the last time they skied it, and 1,547m today. The effect of the changes was to make the course ski a bit longer and flatter; total climb went from 59 meters before down to 49 meters today, and the largest climb on the course from 26 meters to 23. The winning time on this course last year, for the women, was 2:58; this year it was 3:46, in what appeared to be roughly comparable conditions. The men, meanwhile, went from 2:35 to 3:21.
Diggins had only positive things to say about this version of the Val di Fiemme sprint course: “Yeah, I think it’s a really legit course. I love that the uphill is long and there are opportunities for people to move and to pass. I think it’s a challenging course and I love that. I’m echoing Gus here but like it’s the Olympics, it should be hard. You should have to be the fittest and the fastest and just the best to win. I think this is a course that demands those things and I think that’s great.”
Kern echoed these sentiments, saying, “Definitely feels like an Olympic course. It is very hard. It has technical downhills, big climbs. It has everything. So I think it’ll be a very exciting but very challenging race.”
Natural attrition (due to illness and withdrawals) produced a sprint qualifying list featuring both athletes who might typically be seen as distance specialists (Teresa Stadlober of Austria qualified 27th) and some sprinters who might not have qualified before (21-year-old Italian Iris de Martin Pinter, whom I’ll discuss more in a bit, qualified in ninth).
The most notable absence was that of Kristine Stavås Skistad, who despite starring in a recent @fiscrosscountry Instagram reel captioned “Today I will save some energy for the final sprint” that showed her walking around Thursday’s course (viewed over 700,000 times as of today), did not save enough energy for the final sprint, woke up sick, and did not start.
The added length, overall course profile, and fast finishing straight led to two main winning tactics today: breakaway, or bunch sprint supremacy. In heat one, Jasmi Joensuu (Finland) and her speedy skis broke cleanly away from everyone else on the final downhill. She gained enough of a lead to cross Klæbo-style (standing up, albeit not looking deeply bored), presaging her later success on the day. This heat had only five athletes, as Pia Fink (Germany) withdrew after qualifying in 30th, one of several athletes clearly prioritizing health and recovery as we approach the Olympics.
Julia Kern qualified in 18th and raced in heat two, finishing 4.43 seconds behind Moa Ilar’s (Sweden) bunch sprint win. Kern has had a lacklustre start to the season and seems to be racing herself into shape, but is clearly looking for more.
Discussing her tactics for this race, Kern said, “Today I wanted to be near the front given all the turns and then open it up on the climb. But I think just at this stage of the Tour and the season I haven’t quite found my speed yet. And so I didn’t quite have it on the hill today. But hopefully, I skied the first half better than I have in the past. So I’m good with that and just got to practice the hill now.”
I was hoping for more from Heidi Weng in this race, as she finished third here in 2025, but she was not able to keep up with a charging Nadine Fähndrich in Heat three, finishing 9.51 seconds behind in fifth. Fähndrich effectively used fast skis to her advantage and broke away from the rest of heat three like Joensuu had before her. We heard de Martin Pinter yell in joy as she crossed the line behind Fähndrich to progress to her first World Cup semifinal. Perfect timing, with her home Olympics in sight.
In heat four, both Diggins and Johanna Matintalo (Finland) broke away, with Matintalo taking the initial lead down the hill and Diggins leveraging fast skis and excellent downhill tactics to catch up quickly. Heat five then finished in a bunch sprint, won by Johanna Hagström. Don’t leave it too late if you want to beat the Swedish women.
Closer racing in the semifinals eliminated breakaways, but ultimately meant more crowding close to the line. Joensuu and Fähndrich handily took the top two spots from semifinal one. Ilar, who has shown she’s in great shape thus far this year, was relegated to last in her heat for obstruction.
In the second semifinal, Diggins led into and up the bulk of the final climb. Her competitors pushed Diggins back into fourth as they crested the hill and began the descent towards the line.
This led to the most chaotic bunch sprint finish of the day. Just before the line, Diggins was boxed in behind Johanna Hagström (Sweden). We saw her look to her right just before de Martin Pinter filled the gap, possibly at Diggins’s urging, leaving Diggins blocked and unable to move up before the finish. All six competitors finished within 1.30 seconds of each other. de Martin Pinter was ranked as last in this semifinal for obstruction.
As this was the slower semifinal, Diggins did not progress to the final, finishing seventh overall on the day.
Diggins relayed that her tactics for today were somewhat conservative, but still true to her own style: “My tactics were super different than the guys based on how women generally tend to race, which is just a different style. That’s actually on a longer course because it is longer for us.” (The winning women’s time today was 25 seconds slower than the men’s.)
“For me, I was just really like, Okay, I just needed to try to get through to the semis and ideally through to the final,” Diggins continued. “Seventh place is kind of almost best-case scenario because one less lap of hard effort but maximum points are seconds, bonus seconds. But anyway, my tactics were just go out really hard and make it fast, make it honest.”
The final was fortunately less eventful in terms of obstruction. In a career first, Jasmi Joensuu took the win, followed by Nadine Fähndrich in second (+0.44), and Joanna Hagström in third (+1.94).
Tomorrow is the final stage of the Tour de Ski, up the Alpe Cermis, now as always. You can catch both Diggins and Kern starting at 15:30 CET (9:30 EST, 5:30 AKST).
This is Diggins’s last trip up the final climb. Looking forward (and back?) she said, “I’m really excited that this is the last one. You will not catch me doing that again. I’ve put in my time. I think this is like my 14th Tour. I’m just excited to finish it up.
“Of course, I would like to have a really strong climb. You literally have no idea how you’re going to feel until you are a third of the way into the climb. And then you find out, and then you work with what you got. For me, I’m excited to be gritty. Leave it all out there. Cross that finish line with nothing left. That’s what I always do. But that’s all I’m focused on. Yeah, it’s great to have a cushion coming into tomorrow. I think the big thing, honestly, is not let anyone mess with me on the Marcialonga Trail. Like, stay on your feet. Hopefully everyone’s racing fair and clean. I’m just going to keep my poles tight.”
Diggins continues to lead the overall Tour de Ski rankings, with a healthy gap of 1:19 over Joensuu and 1:39 gap ahead of Ilar. With no climbing points awarded today and Astrid Øyre Slind withdrawn due to illness, Frida Karlsson now holds the purple bib through tomorrow.
Maja Dahlqvist also maintains the silver bib, leading in sprint points for the Tour de Ski, with Fähndrich and Hagström hot on her heels three points back. Diggins has not yet officially won the 2025/2026 Tour de Ski, but with her closest final-climb threat Heidi Weng (26.3 seconds faster than Diggins in 2025) now well over two minutes behind, Diggins’s third career Tour de Ski crown seems all but assured.
Results: stage five | Tour de Ski overall
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