Diggins overcomes fall to dominate Toblach 20km and extend Tour lead

She fell in the warm-up and crashed to the snow at the finishing line, too exhausted to celebrate. But in between, Jessie Diggins (USA) stood head and shoulders above the competition in Toblach, Italy on Monday. The effervescent American, cheered on by her family (pictured) for the second day in a row, won the 20km Pursuit Freestyle with room to spare, to take a healthy lead into the next leg of the FIS Cross-Country Skiing 2023-24 Tour de Ski in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday.

With just a seven-second lead over second-place Victoria Carl (GER), one wondered whether Diggins might let the German, and Linn Svahn (SWE) just four seconds further back, catch her at first. After all, the Pursuit – in which racers head out in intervals according to their Tour de Ski standings – normally favours big groups, who can share workload, taking it in turns to slipstream each other to increase their speed. But Diggins only knows one way to race.

And with the vast majority of her 16 previous World Cup victories coming in Freestyle, it was soon apparent that there was only going to be one winner.

The damage was done in the first three of five 4.4km laps. Racing under increasingly clear skies as the temperature crept above freezing, Diggins skied with her trademark fast tempo, hair swishing with every stroke. She increased her lead to 28 after the first circuit; 41s by the end of the second and 53.6s by the start of loop four.

“I wanted to ski a brave race and see what I could hold,” Diggins said. “I was blowing up the last two laps, I couldn’t really feel my legs but I did hear my family out there cheering – and that kept me going. I crossed the line with nothing left and that was the goal.”

And to think, the 32-year-old’s race could have been over before it began had she not escaped unscathed from an accident in the warm-up: “I was practising the fast downhill section and I was on the ice track and I fell and slid maybe 100 metres, flipped a couple of times, had to change my poles before the start. It had me running scared during the race so I guess it got me going!”

Diggins crossed the line in 58 minutes and 18.7 seconds, 46.5 seconds ahead of Carl, and extends her lead in the Tour de Ski – and at the top of the overall World Cup rankings – to 47 seconds. The competition for second place, however, is much closer after Monday’s race.

Svahn quickly closed the gap on Carl at the start of the race and the two worked together to keep a strong chasing pack at bay – until the last lap when the gap began to close. “It was so hard,” the German, who is enjoying the season of her life after ten years on the circuit, admitted. “Normally, you can relax on the downhill, but I did a good job with Linn so we could both make the podium.”

But while Carl opened up enough of a gap on the Swede to eventually take silver by 1.7 seconds, Svahn had to rely on a photo finish to beat Jonna Sundling (SWE) to third place. Having made most of the running in the chasing pack, reigning Tour champion Frida Karlsson (SWE) and veteran Heidi Weng (NOR) had to settle for eighth and sixth place respectively as they were overtaken by superior sprinters in an exciting finish.

In fact, behind Diggins just nine seconds separates Carl in second place and Emma Ribom (SWE) in ninth, with a some of women’s cross-country skiing’s biggest stars in between.

The Tour de Ski resumes on Wednesday 3 January in Davos with a Sprint Freestyle.

For full results from Toblach, click here.