We first met Jessie Diggins last summer on a humid day in Vermont's Green Mountains. She sat lacing up her boots next to a paved country road, wearing wraparound sunglasses with her long blond hair pulled back in a pony tail.
"We've got the same boots, same bindings as our with skis on snow, and the wheels do not have brakes," Diggins said, laughing and grinning at her teammate and training partner Julia Kern.
The big goal today, training on skis that work a bit like rollerblades, was avoiding road-rash. "I have a lot of roller ski scars," Diggins said. "Hopefully it's not a problem for me today, but now that I've said that I'll probably face plant."
Not likely. Diggins is one of the most physically gifted cross-country skiers in U.S. history. The women set off, kicking powerfully, gliding gracefully, a motion a little like ice skating. As they picked up speed, their ski poles clacked on the pavement.
"This is great!" Diggins called out. In the summer heat, the Olympics and the mountains of Italy felt a long way off, but she already looked focused, fine-tuning her conditioning and technique.
Diggins, 34, grew up in Afton, Minnesota, where she tried everything from dancing and violin to running and swimming before joining her high school cross-country ski team. In recent years, when not traveling and competing in Asia and Europe, she's divided her time between Massachusetts and Vermont.
For the better part of a decade she has been the dominant figure in U.S. cross-country, leading a U.S. team that enters the Milan-Cortina Games with several serious shots at the medal podium. "What I love is that we push each other," Kern said.
According to Diggins, her world changed in 2018 after she and fellow American Kikkan Randall shocked the sports world by seizing a gold medal in the team sprint race at the Winter Olympics in South Korea.
Diggins battled to the finish line, edging Sweden's Stina Nilsson by less than a fifth of a second. That moment ended a U.S. Olympic medal drought in cross-country skiing that had lasted since 1976. It was the first U.S. Olympic gold medal in the sport ever.
"It did change my life trajectory and it changed the trajectory of cross-country skiing," Diggins told NPR. "I'm getting a different platform to advocate for causes I care about."
Diggins has used her higher profile to advocate for climate change action; taken a lead promoting mental health in sport and for young women; and in recent weeks, after the killing of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti in her home state, Minnesota, she spoke out against federal ICE raids.
"I want to make sure you know who I'm racing for when I get to the start line at the Olympics," Diggins said in a post on Instagram. " I'm racing for an American people who stand for love, for acceptance, for compassion, honesty and respect for others. I do not stand for hate or violence or discrimination."
After Diggins won gold, she kept on winning
The fact that Diggins has a sizable profile in the U.S. is itself remarkable.
Cross-country skiing is huge in parts of Europe. In the U.S., it's a niche sport. What made Diggins different is that she didn't just win one big race in South Korea — she kept winning.
Going head-to-head with Scandinavian women who dominate cross-country skiing, Diggins notched 33 world cup victories, capturing three FIS World Cup titles, and winning bronze and silver medals at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. Her secret? She learned to love training hard.
"You know the award ceremony is the coolest ten minutes of your life, but then it's over," she told NPR. 'What you're left with is the process. We're doing strength work, we're doing long-long runs on trails. Sometimes it's like almost imperceptible gains."
Cross-country is famously grueling and complex. Racers have to master different techniques to propel themselves over the snow, from the classic forward stride to the skate or freestyle kick. To win they have to grind long distances over challenging terrain, often in bitter cold, finishing with lung-crushing sprints.
A couple hours later, Diggins was back at it in the gym, listening to music, putting in more miles on a treadmill. Kern, her training partner, who will also compete in Milan, described Diggins as the team's cheerleader and role model.
"She's incredibly disciplined and she's willing to push really, really hard," said Kern, who is 26. "She's definitely paved the way for the next generation. I've been really fortunate to have trained with her my whole career."
"I'm a really strong, capable, gritty tough woman and I need help"
But for Diggins, finding the right balance between her natural intensity and competitiveness, and her physical and mental wellness has been a challenge. She struggled with an eating disorder early in her career, which surfaced again after the gold medal win in South Korea brought new fame and pressure.
"Eating disorders are often not about food. It's not really about your body or what it looks like," she told NPR. "For me it was about control and a struggle with perfectionism. I thought I had to be perfect."
Diggins made changes, building a team of coaches, trainers, nutritionists and therapists that focus on her health and happiness as much as her race times. Like other top-tier Olympic athletes, she also began talking publicly about mental health.
"It's okay to ask for help. You don't have to do this all on your own. Like I feel like I'm a really strong, capable, gritty tough woman and I need help. I shouldn't have to just figure this out all on my own," she said.
Diggins said she's entered this Olympic season healthy. She learned to be more flexible. She's added fun and excitement to workouts that used to be a grind. In the fall, weeks after we met Diggins in Vermont and just before setting out on the World Cup racing circuit, she posted video of herself scaling a steep, rugged mountain in New York's Adirondack Park.
"I had this moment when I was just clinging to the rock, like I don't know if I trust myself to do this!" she told NPR after the climb. It was a risky move. A simple ankle twist or a banged-up knee this late in her training cycle could have been disastrous. She said the joy outweighed the danger.
"I'm not going to push things too, too far especially in an Olympic year," Diggins said, laughing mischievously. But she acknowledged what feels like a "calculated risk" to her "might look absolutely insane" to other people.
One last season, one last shot at Olympic gold
While training — and playing — ahead of these Olympics, Diggins was also talking quietly to family and teammates, preparing for another big change: her retirement from professional competition.
At a press conference in November, Diggins made it official. After competing at the Milan Cortina Games, and one last U.S. race in Lake Placid, New York, she'll be done with ski racing.
"I'm just excited to honestly do a lot of gardening and most of all be home with my husband and have that time together," she said.
Diggins' decision raised questions about how she would perform this winter in World Cup races and at the Olympics. Would she still have her signature focus? Would she compete with the same drive?
Then during World Cup races over the last two months before the Winter Games, Diggins performed brilliantly, winning in Trondheim, Norway, and Toblach, Italy, and capturing second in Goms, Switzerland. By season's end, she had racked up an astonishing 88 total podium finishes on her career.
After her final pre-Olympic race in Goms, Diggins spoke again with NPR near the finish line before signing autographs for kids.
"I'm really, really tired, but I'm really happy with where things are at right now," she said, describing this final season of competition. "It's made it so, so special and I think I'm racing with just so much joy and gratitude," she said.
Diggins plans to compete in all six women's Olympic cross-country ski races, including the new 50k women's endurance race premiering at these Winter Games. She said her best shot at gold may come in the 10k women's individual freestyle. Asked if she's ready to battle one more time for an Olympic medal, she grinned.
"I've almost never failed to mentally find the will to dig for it," Diggins said. "Basically I ask myself one very simple question. How do I want to feel at the finish line? I don't like living with regrets. I don't want to ever look back and think What if?"
—NPR's Eric Whitney contributed reporting and research for this story.
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