DENVER, Dec 2 : When Jessie Diggins clipped into her cross-country skis for her first Olympics more than a decade ago, she had little idea of the impact she would come to have on the sport.
Now, as she prepares for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, all eyes - and expectations - are on her.
The 34-year-old from Afton, Minnesota has changed the face of cross-country skiing for American athletes, inspiring younger skiers and proving that the United States is capable of landing podium spots.
She's won three Olympic medals - including the first-ever U.S. gold in the sport - and taken three overall World Cup titles, among countless other accolades.
The upcoming Games, her fourth, carry even more weight after Diggins announced last month that she would be retiring at the end of the season after the World Cup finals in Lake Placid, New York in March.
"My first Olympics, I came with no pressure, no expectations," Diggins told Reuters in an interview. That changed, she said, after winning the team sprint with Kikkan Randall in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, clinching America's first-ever gold medal in a near-photo finish.
"There was a lot of pressure on me to medal. Because I knew I could, and it was very possible," she said of the subsequent Games in Beijing in 2022.
Cross-country skiing hardly gathers the fanfare of rival winter sports like ice hockey, figure skating or even downhill skiing. That is in part because Americans have lagged behind European competitors, like Sweden or Norway.
However, Diggins is changing that, making it commonplace to find American skiers in top-ten places in competitions.
"The biggest thing she has done has helped U.S. skiers believe that they can be the best in the world," said Piotr
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