Stratton-trained cross-country skier Jessie Diggins is set to become the first U.S. woman to win her sport’s biggest annual prize, the World Cup.
The 29-year-old two-time Olympian, who spent last summer working out in Vermont while wondering about Covid cancellations, will claim her discipline’s 2020-21 title after competing this coming weekend in Engadin, Switzerland.
“At the start of this season, I don’t think anyone would have predicted that we’d be able to race,” Diggins has posted on her blog. “It’s truly impressive to me that everyone has put so much time, effort and thought into safety protocols and that we’re here.”
The Minnesota native was part of a 2018 team sprint duo that won the first Olympic gold medal in U.S. cross-country history. She was following in the tracks of the only other American to reach the same Winter Games podium: Vermonter Bill Koch, who snagged silver in 1976.
Koch, now living in the small town of Peru in the shadow of Bromley Mountain, went on in 1982 to become the first (and so far only) American to win cross-country’s World Cup.
Diggins is set to join him upon Sunday’s close of the 2020-21 season. She currently leads her category’s overall standings by 342 points with two races left. A race winner receives 100 points, so it’s statistically impossible for anyone to overtake her.
Earlier this season, Diggins became the first non-European to win the Tour de Ski, a 10-day Tour de France-like stage race in Switzerland and Italy.
“So excited to be closing out a long season with the kind of skiing I grew up on — crossing lakes, fields and winding through trees,” Diggins posted Wednesday on Instagram. “Skiing days like these are how I know I’ll be doing this my whole life, long after I’m done racing competitively.”
