Jessie Diggins’s Last Run | The New Yorker

But it was a girl from the Midwest branch of that Nordic family who drew the crowds to upstate New York this weekend: Jessie Diggins, who grew up near the Twin Cities and became (with the mentoring and training of Caldwell’s son, Sverre) the greatest American to ever strap on a pair of skinny skis, and arguably the greatest winter endurance athlete this country has ever produced. Diggins used his star status to persuade Europeans hosting the World Cup to turn their attention to the United States for the first time in decades, hosting two races in his native Minnesota two years ago (after a COVID delay). This event was such a triumph, with some twenty thousand spectators enthusiastically gathering on a Minneapolis golf course, that she managed to attract Europeans again for what she had announced would be her retirement races, after her last Olympics in Milan, where she won a bronze medal. (She won four Olympic medals, including a gold, and seven World Championship medals.)

Diggins captured the soul of this Nordic nation not only because she was so successful (at the end of the races on Sunday, she received her fourth “crystal globe,” marking her as the overall World Cup champion for the entire season), but also because of the way she ran. Unlike her Scandinavian competitors, who favor both elegant technique and Nordic reserve, she has achieved her victories by descending spectacularly into what she calls the “cave of pain.” She climbs hills, sometimes wasting energy as her bobbing head tosses her ponytail from side to side; she skis downhill with unparalleled speed and abandon; she crosses the finish line completely exhausted, often collapsing in a heap of heavy breathing and muscle cramps. (There’s even a “Diggins Collapse Index” online, ranking his post-race snow sprawls.) It’s the same thing off the course: he’s told, with rare frankness, the story of his battles with an eating disorder; Peacock is currently airing a documentary about his career called “Threshold.”

In Lake Placid, the Minnesota state flag was clearly visible throughout the course, and American flags were flying as well, even a sea of ​​them. In fact, many Minnesotans in attendance wore buttons that expressed their opinions about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents; Many of those who cheered for Diggins two years ago spent this winter whistling to protect their neighbors. (The sport definitely has a liberal streak. When Ogden won his first silver medal – something no American had done since Koch, fifty years ago – he was asked how it could change his life. Maybe, he said, he could take the opportunity to meet one of his heroes, Bernie Sanders.) But for every shirt emblazoned with a slogan, there were ten cheeks covered in (biodegradable) glitter like the ones Diggins sprinkles on his face before each race. Diggins, for all his courage, also brought a brilliance to the sport. The love for her was palpable; you could follow his progress around the course simply by listening to the cheers that could be heard at every turn. She may have arrived too exhausted from the Olympics to dominate the proceedings; she had fifth and ninth places in the first two races, but that didn’t matter. Handmade “Thank you, Jessie” signs floated around the track.

The American public – perhaps in part because so few of their countrymen have reached the pinnacle of the sport – is also known to be a keen fan of skiers from other countries. They cheered long and hard for Klæbo on Friday, as he moved through a heavy snowfall with his usual grace, winning easily. Klæbo, injured earlier this month after a collision with Ogden that left him with a concussion, decided to skip Saturday’s sprint races, where he would otherwise have been the prohibitive favorite. That left the door open for a beloved Italian star, Federico Pellegrino, who, like Diggins, is retiring after this competition. Pellegrino enjoyed the affection of the crowd during his warm-up laps, as they chanted his nickname, Chicco Pelle. “I have this feeling of power coming from the public,” he said after the race. Me“, he added, and when he won, he donned a cowboy hat, to the delight of the crowd. Klæbo returned to the course on Sunday for the final race of the season, a grueling twenty-kilometer odyssey through the steep climbs and drops of the wooded track, and won with his usual aplomb. Sometimes, while the other riders were sweating and straining in a peloton behind him, he would spin head to observe their progress, looking for all the world like a fourth grade teacher taking his somewhat unruly charges on a field trip.