Jessica Diggins (born August 26, 1991) is an American cross-country skier. She is the most accomplished cross-country skier from the United States in the sport's history having won four World Cup overall titles, four Olympic medals, seven World Championship medals, and numerous other event championships. The New Yorker described Diggins as "the greatest American ever to put on a pair of skinny skis, and arguably the greatest winter endurance athlete this country has ever produced".[2] She announced that she would retire from competitive cross-country skiing after the 2025–26 season.[3]
Diggins has also won seven medals, including two golds, at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, from 2013 to 2025. She was the first American to win an individual event gold medal by winning the 10 kilometer freestyle in 2023. Diggins has competed in the FIS Cross-Country World Cup since 2011. In 2021, she won the women's overall title for the 2020–21 FIS Cross-Country World Cup, becoming the first American woman to win a season title and the first American to win one since Bill Koch in 1982.[6] Diggins again won FIS Cross-Country World Cup overall titles in the 2023–24,[7]2024–25[8], and 2025–26 seasons.[3]
Diggins began skiing at age four[14] and participated in the Minnesota Youth Ski League.[15] She showed prowess for skiing at age 11 when she started competing against older children.[14]
Athletic career
High school and juniors
Diggins competed for Stillwater Area High School's cross-country ski team. In 2008, Diggins was the top-ranked girls' individual cross-country skier in the Minnesotahigh school rankings.[16] She won the Korteloppet races in 2008 and 2009 as part of the American Birkebeiner festival in Wisconsin while she was still in high school.[17] She fell out of the Minnesota high school rankings in 2009 when she competed and won the United States Junior National Sprint title on March 9 of that year.[18] She was added to the United States World Junior Cross-Country Ski Team in 2010.[19]
Diggins earned an academic scholarship to Northern Michigan University but deferred enrollment to race with the Central Cross-Country Elite team for one year. She decided to race professionally rather than attend college. She was named to the United States Ski Team in 2011[20] and competed at her first World Championships that year.[5]
Diggins won the silver medal in the 10-kilometer freestyle race in the 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun.[5] In the 2015–16 World Cup, she placed eighth in the overall and sprint rankings and ninth in the distance ranking.[22]
2017–2019
At the 2017 Nordic World Ski Championships in Lahti, Finland, Diggins took two medals: in the freestyle sprint, she won her quarterfinal and semifinal heats on her way to taking the silver, ahead of teammate Randall in third.[23] Subsequently, in the classic team sprint, Diggins and Sadie Bjornsen finished third, catching and passing the Swedish team in the closing stages of the race to take the bronze by 0.19 seconds. This made Diggins the first American to win four World Championship medals in cross-country skiing.[24]
Diggins finished third overall in the 2017–18 Tour de Ski, becoming the first American to finish on the podium in the overall classification, and beating her previous best of fifth overall in the previous edition. Her teammate Sadie Bjornsen finished ninth overall, also making it the first time that two Americans finished in the overall top 10.[25] Diggins finished second overall in the World Cup 2017–2018 season standings.[6]
At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Diggins and Randall became the first American cross-country skiers to capture a gold medal by winning the women's team sprint at the Alpensia Cross-Country Centre. In the final sprint, Diggins passed the last two individual sprint classical gold medalists – Sochi gold medalist Maiken Caspersen Falla of Norway before the last turn and then Pyeongchang gold medalist Stina Nilsson of Sweden on the last straightaway. Theirs was not only the United States' first ever cross-country skiing gold medal but also the first American cross-country skiing medal since Bill Koch won silver in the men's 30km in 1976.[26] Steve Schlanger and Chad Salmela called the end of the race for NBC:[27][28]
Salmela: As they come into the stadium, Diggins trying to get in on the outside! Schlanger: Jessie Diggins with two fifth-place finishes, one-sixth, so close for the U.S. on so many occasions, now moving up on the outside into second place! Salmela: They're all completely gassed! They've given it everything on the Klaebo-bakken! Stina Nilsson leading Jessie Diggins into the final turn – can Diggins answer?! Schlanger: As the roars rattle around the cross-country stadium in Pyeongchang, Sweden, the U.S. and Norway coming to the line! Salmela:Here comes Diggins! Here comes Diggins! Schlanger: On the outside! Diggins making the play around Sweden! Salmela:Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Gold! Schlanger: Jessie Diggins to the line! And it is Jessie Diggins delivering a landmark moment that will be etched in U.S. Olympic history! The first-ever cross-country gold medal for the U.S.! Salmela: It's a gold medal for the United States! It's not just a medal; it's the gold!
The play-by-play call of Diggins' victory with the line, "Here comes Diggins!", has become one of the most iconic moments in the United States' Olympic broadcast history.[29][30][31]
Diggins competed in all six women's cross-country skiing events at the Olympics and finished in the top 10 in all of them. At the end of the games, she was the flag bearer for the United States in the closing ceremony.[32]
Diggins won the 2021 Tour de Ski, a first for an American. She placed atop the overall World Cup 2020–2021 season standings, claiming the biggest annual prize in cross-country skiing. Diggins' victory put her with Koch, who won the men's title in 1982, to be the only Americans to win overall season titles for a World Cup cross-country ski circuit.[6]
At the 2022 Winter Olympics, Diggins won bronze in the women's sprint to become the first American to win an individual Olympic medal in a cross-country sprint.[33] She went on to win silver in the women's 30 kilometer freestyle, earning the U.S.' last medal on the last day of the Olympics.[34] She was the first non-European to win a medal in the event.[35] Diggins left Beijing as the most decorated American cross-country skier of all time.[36] For the second straight Olympics, she finished in the top 10 in all six women's cross-country skiing events.
In December 2022, Diggins broke the American record for World Cup cross-country ski wins with her fourteenth such win.[37]
At the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2023 in Slovenia, Diggins and teammate Julia Kern won bronze in the team sprint. Two days later, Diggins won gold in the 10km freestyle, which was the first top medal for an American in an individual event at any cross-country skiing world championship.[38]
Diggins posted the most successful season ever for an American skier during the 2023–24 FIS Cross-Country World Cup.[7] She won the 2023–24 Tour de Ski, her second victory in the competition. While on break from the World Cup ski tour mid season, Diggins competed in the American Birkebeiner in Wisconsin, and won the 50km freestyle race on February 24, 2024.[17] For 2024, Diggins was awarded the Holmenkollen Medal, the highest Norwegian honor in skiing—Diggins was the first American to ever receive the distinction.[39][40] For the 2023–24 World Cup season, Diggins claimed both the overall individual title—her second title after winning it in 2021—and the distance title.[7] She set a United States' records with six victories and 12 podium finishes for the season.[41]
Diggins won the 2024–25 FIS Cross-Country World Cup, overcoming a partially torn plantar fascia early in the season. [8] Diggins never relinquished the top standing after reaching it after the first race weekend. For the season she reached the podium seven times, including six victories.[42]
At the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, she suffered a crash during the first race of the games, with bruised ribs impacting her breathing, but fought her way to finish eighth in the skiathlon.[43] A few days later, while in visible pain, Diggins won the bronze medal in the 10 kilometer freestyle.[44]
Diggins won the women's overall and distance titles for the 2025–26 FIS Cross-Country World Cup season. She had previously announced it would be her final competitive season. Diggins clinched the titles in the final weekend of racing at Lake Placid.[3]
Both of Diggins parents are originally from Canada. Diggins holds dual United States and Canadian citizenship. She has maintained close ties to family in Thunder Bay, Ontario, where her father's family is from.[11][45] Diggins married Wade Poplawski in 2022. Poplawski, a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, is a former minor league hockey player for the Rapid City Rush. The couple lives in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. Diggins had trained in Vermont.[9][46]
Social activism
Diggins, wearing an Emily Program logo on her hat, in 2019
Diggins is an ambassador for the non-profit organization Fast and Female, which inspires girls ages 8–18 to be active and empowered in sports.[47][48] Diggins is also an ambassador for the non-profit organization Protect Our Winters (POW), whose aim is to effect systemic solutions to climate change through the outdoor sports community. Diggins traveled with POW to Capitol Hill in April 2018 to raise concerns over climate change.[10]
Eating disorder awareness
In 2019, Diggins became a spokesperson for the Emily Program, an organization in the United States that provides treatment for eating disorders. In several interviews and essays, she revealed her experience of seeking treatment for bulimia at the organization in 2010, with the aim of using her story to help improve self-acceptance and reduce stigma and secrecy around eating disorders for others.[49][50] In 2020, Diggins wrote an autobiography, Brave Enough, about her athletic accomplishments and personal struggles with bulimia as a teenager.[51] After 12 years in recovery, Diggins said in media interviews that she had a relapse in 2023 ahead of the cross-country ski season.[9][41]
Impact on skiing
Diggins is credited with elevating the stature of cross-country skiing in the United States.[52] After winning an Olympic gold medal, she used her clout to successfully lobby for the United States to host a World Cup cross-country skiing event, culminating in the 2024 Stifel Loppet Cup held in Minneapolis,[53] the first of such events in decades.[2] Diggins' popularity was a factor in the cross-country skiing World Cup racing circuit to return again to the United States in 2026 for the Stifle Lake Placid Finals at Mount Van Hoevenberg in New York.[2]
She is considered the greatest American cross-country skiier of all time and one of the greatest American endurance athletes.[2] Diggins became most known for pushing the limits of physical endurance in cross-country skiing, which she characterized as having her body enter a "pain cave".[54] Numerous video clips of her collapsing in exhausion at the end of races have circulated on the Internet.[2] In 2026, Peacock released Threshold, a documentary about Diggins' athletic abilities and mental health resiliency.[2]
Bibliography
Diggins, Jessie and Smith, Todd (2020). Brave Enough. ISBN978-1517908195
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