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No woman from outside Europe had ever captured the cross-country skiing World Cup overall title until Jessie Diggins in 2021. Now she’s won it four times.
The Minnesota-born star clinched yet another crystal globe in the twilight of her glittering career on Friday, securing the season crown with a fifth-place finish in the 10km classic at the World Cup finals in Lake Placid, New York. Diggins made it a mathematical certainty with two races remaining in the season-ending weekend, giving her a third consecutive overall title and fourth in total.
Diggins entered the finals with a 342-point lead over Sweden’s Moa Ilar. With a maximum of 345 points available across the three races, Ilar needed to sweep the weekend program and have Diggins finish near the back of the field to have any chance of overtaking her. Instead, Diggins’ result on Friday eliminated whatever doubt remained.
She finished in 29min 36.9sec in snowy conditions in the Adirondacks. Ilar, who started earlier in the interval race, faded to eighth. Sweden’s Linn Svahn won in 29min 4.4sec, followed by Frida Karlsson, with Norway’s Heidi Weng third.
The result also secured the distance title for Diggins.
Diggins becomes the first woman to win three straight overall World Cup titles – cross-country skiing’s biggest prize – since Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk from 2009 to 2011. Only Russia’s Yelena Välbe, with five titles, has won more. She is one of two North American skiers, male or female, to win an overall title along with fellow American Bill Koch in 1982.
The 34-year-old from the tiny St Paul suburb of Afton (population: 2,951) announced before the season that she would retire at its conclusion. She will race the final two events of the weekend – a sprint on Saturday and a distance race on Sunday – before ending her career on home snow.
In 15 seasons on the World Cup circuit, Diggins has 33 individual victories and 90 podium finishes, both among the top 10 in the sport’s history and the most by a non-European skier.
She took control of this season’s standings during the opening weekend in Ruka, Finland, and did not relinquish the lead. She won three races, reached the podium seven more times and captured the Tour de Ski, the seven-stage, nine-day series of races modeled after the Tour de France that straddles the New Year.
Diggins will retire as the most decorated American cross-country skier with four Olympic medals. She won team sprint gold at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics with Kikkan Randall – the first Olympic cross-country gold for the United States – and added silver and bronze in 2022. At the 2026 Milano Cortina Games, she won bronze in the 10km freestyle despite racing with a rib injury.
“It’s time to open the next chapter of my life,” Diggins said earlier this season. “I’ve been working very, very hard for a very long time … but it’s time to open the next chapter.”
Diggins said the decision to retire developed over time, citing the physical demands of the sport and the toll of spending much of each year traveling on the World Cup circuit.
“It wasn’t an a-ha moment. Over time, all of these other things in my life that are important to me started to out-value just ski racing,” she said. “The time has come for me to get really excited about having a normal life.”
Her legacy also includes advocacy around athlete mental health, shaped in part by her openness about recovering from an eating disorder.
“One of the legacy pieces that I’m leaving behind is how US Ski & Snowboard handles mental health and how they support people,” she said. “When someone says, ‘Hey, I’m struggling with an eating disorder,’ there is so much help available, because I was so open and shared everything along the way.”
Diggins is expected to finish her career at the conclusion of Sunday’s race in Lake Placid.
