Industry News
It’s been another fantastic weekend for the U.S. Cross-Country team, with two podiums, more than a dozen top-30 results, and a couple of personal bests at the FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Östersund, Sweden. Most notably, Jessie Diggins won the 10km race and James Clinton ‘JC’ Schoonmaker came third in the Sprint event — a personal best for the 23-year-old Truckee, California, native.
Saturday, December 9, 2023, saw the Sprint Finals with the men and women competing across 1.4km (0.875 miles). The sprint is held in heats of six competitors and qualifications had been run the previous day. A total of five athletes from Team USA had qualified for the sprint finals, which are run as five heats of six in the quarter finals with the top two skiers from each heat qualifying for the next level.
The women’s sprint race was won by Emma Ribom from Sweden while second place went to Norway’s Kristine Stavaas Skistad, while third place came from Sweden as well with Linn Svahn rounding out the podium. Narrowly missing out on the podium was Team USA’s Rosie Brennan in 4th, while Jessie Diggins came 5th, and Julia Kern 17th.
The men’s sprint was won by none other than Johannes Høsflot Klæbo from Norway, who has won four Overall Cross Country Crystal Globes as well as five Spring Crystal Globes and is the 22/23 defending champion. Second place went to fellow country-man Erik Valnes, while third place went to JC Schoonmaker taking his first career World Cup podium. Teammate Ben Ogden finished just behind Schoonmaker in fourth place.
Sunday, December 10, 2023, saw the 10km (6.25 miles) race, which Jessie Diggins won by a whole 23 seconds. She flew out off the starting gates in her signature style and kept the lead throughout all three laps of the race course. Second place went to Heidi Weng from Norway, while third place went to Victoria Carl from Germany. This is Diggins’ second victory of the 23/24 season and she therefore retains the yellow leaderbib as the overall leader. It marks the Minnesota-native’s 16th career World Cup victory. Teammates Rosie Brennan and Sophia Laukli finished in fifth and eighth place respectively, while Julia Kern ended the day in 29th.
“It really was the inspiration from the boys yesterday that made me go so fast today. Oh my God, I cried so hard [yesterday], I was so happy. I’m so thankful to those boys for what they did. I went out there and was like ‘I’ve just gotta ski like JC [Schoonmaker] out here! So, I was trying to keep that going. We had great skis. Our tech[nical] team has been on fire, working so hard, and I’m so grateful. I felt like I was flying out there, that was so fun, those downhills are amazing, it was a blast to ski out there.”
— Jessie Diggins
The men had started the day and the 10km race was tightly held in Norwegian hand, with the top five spots all coming from Norway, with Harald Oestberg Amundsen in first place, Simen Hegstad Krueger in second place and Didrik Toenseth. The U.S. Team had great results, with three skiers in the top 30: Johnny Hagenbuch in 13th, Gus Schumacher in 21st, and Zanden McMullen in 28th place. It marks a career-best for both Hagenbuch and McMullen.
“Today’s race felt great – a continuation of the form that started to come around in the relay in Gällivare. I executed my pacing really well, and it’s very gratifying to have a such a good result also! Hopefully I’ll be able to carry this momentum into Trondheim, U.S. Nationals and the rest of the season through NCAAs.”
— Johnny Hagenbuch
In an interview later that day Diggins credited her male teammates with her win, “It was so cool last night, celebrating with the U.S. team, so this one was for the boys.”
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