BEIJING — Jessie Diggins brought home the United States’ final medal of the 2022 Olympic Games, winning silver in the grueling 30km mass start cross-country race.
The final event in the Games’ Zhangjiakou mountain cluster, the race went off under relatively balmy 14-degree temperatures and the kind of slate-blue skies that have characterized much of these Games. Sporting the stars and stripes on her hat, arms and legs, Diggins ground her way through the event with no one nearby either ahead or behind; for much of the race, she was at least a minute behind gold medal winner Therese Johaug of Norway, and she was at least a minute ahead of the rest of the pack.
Diggins, whose surprise gold in the team sprint in Pyeongchang vaulted her to national prominence, was a busy woman at these Games. She competed in six events, placing in the top 8 in all of them and also winning a bronze in the sprint.
The hilly 7.5-km Zhangjiakou course, winding through groves of trees and past large grandstands, allowed Johaug to stake out a huge lead that only grew as the race went on. Diggins, meanwhile, struggled to keep third-place Ebba Andersson of Sweden at bay, watching her lead decline from well over a minute to as little as 43 seconds in the race’s final kilometers.
But on the final hills, buoyed by the support and cheering of volunteers, Diggins found new strength. Andersson, meanwhile, had to deal with the pursuing pack, including American Rosie Brennan, which closed the gap and caught her in the race’s final few meters. Kerttu Niskanen of Finland ended up winning the bronze by a scant two seconds.
Diggins finished with a time of 1:26:37.3, 1 minute, 43 seconds behind Johaug, and collapsed onto the snow, exhausted and triumphant. A Ski Federation official massaged her back with an American flag until she felt well enough to stand, then helped her away from the finish line.
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