Jessie Diggins slams Mikaela Shiffrin's critics: "People need to chill with the judging"

When Mikaela Shiffrin struggled on the slopes at Beijing 2022, numerous athletes - including Simone Biles and Lindsey Vonn - voiced their support after she detailed some of the abuse she received on social media.

Now cross-country ski ace Jessie Diggins has followed suit after she won two medals in Beijing to take her Olympic career tally to three.

The 30-year-old told FasterSkier "Someone’s out there putting their heart and soul on the line, over and over and over. That’s amazing

"All we should be doing is applauding their guts and their grit. And so, I just think people need to chill, with the judging."

Double Olympic champion Shiffrin had a Games to forget from a results standpoint.

She failed to win a medal in six events, DNF'ing in three of them, with her mental strength questioned by some of her critics.

Diggins, who has long spoken out about mental health and body image, responded, "People need to remember that they don’t get to judge. They can try, but it’s nobody’s place to assess somebody’s mental state. It’s nobody’s place to assess their performance, or critique them or judge them.

"They need to remember that there’s a human on the other end of that."

Diggins ended her Games on Sunday (20 February) with silver in the 30km mass start free to become the first American cross-country skier to win two medals at a single Games.

Her bronze in the individual sprint saw her become the first American woman to win an individual medal in the discipline and the first American to win more than Olympic one cross-county skiing medal after her team sprint gold at PyeongChang 2018 with Kikkan Randall.