Jessie Diggins competes through the ladies’s 30km mass begin free cross-country snowboarding competitors on the 2022 Winter Olympics on Feb. 20, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China.
Alessandra Tarantino/AP
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Alessandra Tarantino/AP
Jessie Diggins competes through the ladies’s 30km mass begin free cross-country snowboarding competitors on the 2022 Winter Olympics on Feb. 20, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China.
Alessandra Tarantino/AP
Jessie Diggins made historical past on a number of fronts Sunday when she took the silver within the ladies’s 30-kilometer freestyle mass begin in Beijing. Not solely did she turn out to be the primary non-European athlete to deliver house a medal within the occasion, she’s now the one American to deliver again a number of cross-country medals from the identical Olympics — and he or she did it having barely recovered from meals poisoning.
Diggins’ second-place end Sunday marked her third Olympic medal. Having introduced house the bronze within the dash finals almost two weeks in the past and the gold within the crew dash freestyle in 2018, the 30-year-old Minnesota native has a medal of each colour, making her the winningest cross-country skier in U.S. Olympic historical past.
Her podium end was made much more spectacular when phrase bought out that Diggins had been affected by meals poisoning main as much as the race.
“That is one of many hardest issues I’ve ever completed in my entire life, particularly as a result of I had meals poisoning 30 hours in the past, which is why I assumed I used to be going to die on the end line,” Diggins mentioned.
Diggins completed behind Norway’s gold medalist, Johaug Therese, and 50 seconds forward of Finland’s Niskanen Kerttu. She had climbed to second place a couple of third of the way in which into the race and held her floor.
She battled frigid temperatures and excessive winds all the 30 kilometers, though her legs started to cramp up midway by means of, a Staff USA information launch mentioned. When she lastly crossed the end line, exhausted and out of breath, she collapsed.
“That may have been one of the best race of my whole life, I am not going to lie,” Diggins mentioned. “It was additionally possibly the toughest race of my entire life.”
Her silver introduced Staff USA’s medal depend for the video games to 25. The US hadn’t carried out significantly effectively in cross-country snowboarding earlier than Diggins got here on the scene. Till Diggins and her teammate, Kikkan Randall, took the gold within the crew dash in 2018, the final cross-country medal Staff USA introduced again was in 1976, when Invoice Koch took silver within the 30k.
“It has been an emotional roller-coaster, however I’m so joyful we made it to the top,” Diggins mentioned. “To have a medal within the dash and the 30K are the last word bookends for me. I’ve been making an attempt to be an excellent all-round athlete my entire life, so this has been actually cool.”
