The Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games Will Be Jessie Diggins’s Last

Jessie Diggins, the most decorated American cross-country skier in history, just announced that the 2025–2026 season would be her last. The announcement came as she was set to begin her final World Cup season, which will conclude in March 2026 at the Stifel Lake Placid Finals in New York.

FALUN, SWEDEN – FEBRUARY 16: Jessie Diggins of Usa celebrates the first place after the 20Km Mass Start Free of the FIS World Cup Cross-Country Falun on February 16, 2025 in Falun, Sweden. (Photo by Federico Modica/NordicFocus/Getty Images)

Getty Images

I was lucky enough to attend a press conference on November 20th with Jessie and ask her questions, along with other members of the media.

Remembered For Her Joy Of The Sport

Jessie Diggins will be remembered not only for her athletic success, but also for her “emotions-on-her-sleeve” smile and trademark face glitter. For 15 years, the glitter has been a part of the uniform—a symbol of the joy and heart she has brought to the punishing world of cross-country ski racing.

Athletic Highlights

She will be remembered for the Team Sprint gold medal with Kikkan Randall in PyeongChang in 2018 and the gritty silver in Beijing in 2022. Jessie Diggins is the most decorated American cross-country skier in history, with 29 individual World Cup victories, 79 World Cup podiums, and three Overall Crystal Globe titles in 2021, 2024, and 2025. She is the only non-European woman to have won the Overall FIS Crystal Globe.

PyeongChang 2018

Jessie Diggins won the gold medal in the women’s team sprint freestyle event with her teammate Kikkan Randall. The event is a 6 x 1.25 km sprint, with the two teammates alternating legs. Throughout the race, Diggins and Randall matched the strong pace set by European powerhouses like Norway and Sweden. On the final lap, Diggins was chasing gold medalists Stina Nilsson of Sweden and Maiken Caspersen Falla of Norway.

With the crowd roaring, the three women would enter the Olympic stadium with Diggins in third place right behind Falla and Caspersen. Jessie would first pass Falla.

Then, with Nilsson taking the inside lane, Diggins would choose the outside lane in a final push for the finish line. In the last few strides, Diggins would lunge and throw her ski forward just across the line, beating Nilsson by a mere 0.19 seconds.

After crossing the finish line, Diggins would collapse in the snow, as Randall tackled her. Their win marked the first cross-country skiing medal for the U.S. since 1976 and the first-ever gold.

Beijing 2022

Jessie Diggins won a silver medal in the women’s 30-kilometer mass start freestyle race at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, a historic and grueling performance that came just a day after she was battling food poisoning. Her gutsy finish made her the first non-European woman to medal in the event and cemented her status as the most decorated U.S. cross-country skier in Olympic history.

The race was held in cold, windy conditions on the final day of the Beijing Games. Diggins, who had already won a bronze medal in the individual sprint earlier in the Games, was recovering from a debilitating bout of food poisoning that had left her bedridden the day before. Norway’s Therese Johaug took control of the race early, eventually winning gold by a large margin. Diggins skied a smart, tactical race, consistently holding her position and fending off the chase group for silver, finishing over a minute ahead of the bronze medalist. The performance matched the best-ever individual Olympic finish by an American cross-country skier, a record previously held by Bill Koch since 1976.

Helping Others

Diggins will continue to use her platform to reduce the stigma around mental illness and encourage others to seek help. In her 2020 memoir, Brave Enough, Diggins details her struggle and recovery with an eating disorder. As an ambassador and spokesperson for the Emily Program, an eating disorder treatment center where she was treated as a teenager, Diggins shares her personal recovery story. Following a relapse with her eating disorder in 2023, she continued to speak publicly about the experience, emphasizing that recovery is not a linear process.

The Next Chapter

Diggins says she will run 100-mile races just for the fun of it, work in her garden, and spend more time with her husband and family. She will continue to travel and speak as an advocate for athletes and mental health, as well as gender equality in sports and climate change and its effects on winter sports.

I will be cheering hard for Diggins in Milan-Cortina (and beyond) in her journey.

Go Jessie go!