Diggins ready for final Olympic chapter: 'I've given everything'

Women’s overall World Cup No.1 Jessie Diggins (USA) hopes to end her Olympic career with another major success at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games before retiring from the sport at the end of this season.

The 34-year-old is enjoying her last dance on the Cross-Country circuit where she won her third Tour de Ski a month ago and has a fourth Overall Crystal Globe within reach.

A success for Diggins, however, does not necessarily have to mean a second Olympic gold medal. 

”I have three big goals,” said Diggins, who claimed the Team Sprint title at PyeongChang 2018 together with Kikkan Randall.

”My first big goal is that when I cross every finish line, I want to look back and know that without a shadow of a doubt, I gave everything that I had and was the best that I could be.

Diggins wants to play a supportive role at her last Games.

”I want to make sure that my teammates feel pride in their accomplishments and I can be there for them in these moments, whether it’s the best day of their life or the worst day of their life,” she said.

Her second goal goes along with that theme.

”It is something I wrote down for the 2018 Olympics, which is to be the one that steadies the boat, not the one who rocks it. So basically, have your sh** together,” she said.

”Lastly, I really want to enjoy this with my family and friends. It’s my last Games and my final season and you always just want to hug your mum after the finish no matter how it goes.

In every event held at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium, however, there is a challenge from Sweden.

At the 2025 FIS Nordic Ski World Championships in Trondheim, Norway, the Swedish women won six gold medals in six events and will be looking to repeat that feat at this year’s Games.

Sweden’s Olympic Sprint champion Jonna Sundling claimed three world titles in Trondheim and will aim to defend her Olympic crown, having won two Sprints this FIS Coop Cross-Country World Cup season.

The Sprint this year, however, will be contested in Classic style – an event Sundling has only won once at the World Cup where she has a dozen Freestyle Sprint victories to her name.

Sundling became Team Sprint world champion together with Maja Dahlqvist (SWE) one year ago, and will hope to repeat that at the Olympic stage, making up for her silver in the event at Beijing 2022.

Norway’s Heidi Weng also sees Sundling as a gold medal favourite in the 20km Skiathlon Classic/Free that kicks off the Women’s competition at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium on 7 February.

"I think she’s a bit of a wild card if she has the right day,” Weng said.

Sweden’s Ebba Andersson won the Skiathlon at the 2025 FIS Nordic Ski World Championships in Trondheim, Norway and is another contender to win the first event of the Games.

The 28-year-old claimed a total of three gold medals last year and will be aiming for medals in all distance races, including the final event; the 50km Mass Start Classic on 22 February, as the event makes its Olympic debut in women's Cross-Country.

Andersson's main goals are to win her first individual medal, and to win a relay gold.

”I do not have an individual Olympic medal yet, so that is something I really want to bring home from Italy, preferably a gold medal,” she said.

Since finishing fourth in Tour de Ski, Andersson has spent the past month at home with her parents in Sollefteå, Sweden, working with a training regime that she and her father have developed together.

Apart from catching an illness for a week after the Tour, it has been the same preparations as before last year’s big events.

”It would be very fun if the preparations you have made and what you have trained for also give a bit of return,” Andersson said.

”I think that it might be the skiathlon or the 50km that are some of the races where I have the greatest chance. But we’ll see, it is difficult to say, especially now when I have had quite a long competition break. 

At last year’s world championships, it was another Swede from Sollefteå – Frida Karlsson – who won the 50km title. Karlsson has also been out of competition since the Tour.

Apart from Sundling, Andersson and Karlsson, who won the 10km Interval Start Classic in Ruka, Finland, in November, Johanna Hagstroem, Moa Ilar and Linn Svahn make it six Swedes who have won World Cup races this winter. 

But Diggins does not see the Swedish squad as something she needs to stop.

”I’m not going to do anything to stop them. When I race, I have the opposite from a competitive mindset; it’s not about trying to beat anyone else, it’s trying to get the most out of me.

”Can I be better than I was yesterday? Can I ski the smartest that I can? Can I ski with the best technique possible? Can I be super efficient every single stride? What is the best that I can do?

Apart from Diggins and Sundling, the two other skiers who have won more than once this World Cup season are Norwegian; sprint specialist Kristine Stavaas Skistad and rising distance star Karoline Simpson-Larsen.

”I’m going for gold,” said Skistad, who had to settle for a silver behind Sundling in Trondheim last year.

Asked how she should stop Sundling, she said: ”I just have to keep up.”

When the Olympic tracks were tested in Val di Fiemme on 3 January, Finland’s Jasmi Joensuu claimed her first World Cup victory, joined on the podium by Switzerland’s Nadine Faehndrich in second place and Hagstroem, who finished third.

Another Finnish skier making it onto the top of her first World Cup podium this season was Johanna Matintalo, who triumphed in the 20km Mass Start in Goms, Switzerland – the last race before the Games.

Germany’s Coletta Rydzek and Laura Gimmler also showed fine form in the last weekends of World Cup action and could be a force to be reckoned with in Tesoro's Sprint as well as the Team Sprint, where Germany are defending champions.

Click here for the full schedule for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games, and here to follow FIS Cross-Country on Youtube.