PYEONGCHANG - Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall came from behind to win a surprise cross-country gold medal in Wednesday night’s team sprint freestyle, ending one of the the United States’ longest-running Olympic droughts with a dramatic upset.
The American skiers overtook a pair of more heralded teams to finish the final in a time of 15 min, 56.47 sec, edging Sweden for the gold by 0.19 seconds and coming in nearly three seconds ahead of Norway, who added a bronze to their overflowing cross-country medal haul in Pyeongchang. “I just felt unstoppable,” Diggins said. “I am in the best shape of my life right now for sure. That feeling of crossing the line and having Kikkan tackle me was the coolest thing ever.”
Diggins and Randall became the first ever American women to win any medal in cross-country skiing, much less a gold. They join Bill Koch, a silver medalist in the 30km event at the 1976 Winter Games in Innsbruck, as the only US skiers to make an Olympic podium in a sport dominated by athletes from Scandinavia. The Americans earned a spot in the front row of the final by posting the fastest time in the second of two semi-finals with a mark of 16 min 22.56 sec, more than 10 seconds better than Norway’s winning time in the first.
“I felt better every round today,” Randall said. “I felt strong in the semi-final, I was trying to conserve energy. In the final, every lap I felt stronger and stronger. When we went up that hill I knew I just had to keep us in there. Tactically, I wanted to keep us in there so Jessie could do what she wanted to do on that last lap.” Diggins, the ebullient talisman of the US team who spends her downtime learning hip-hop dance routines from YouTube tutorials, was third entering the final lap before finding an extra reserve to overtake both the Swedish and Norwegian teams and secure the history-making gold.
“In the final stretch I was just thinking, ‘Go, go, go, I’m giving it everything I had and I’ve got someone who I really love and care about waiting for me at the finishing line and I just want to make her proud’,” Diggins said. “Just believing that we had what it took the entire day.”