Cross country ski races are grueling affairs, but the 4x5-kilometer relay is its own special kind of torture.
Jessie Diggins competes in the cross-country skiing women’s 4 x 5km relay at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Zhangjiakou, China, on Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022.
That all-for-one, one-for-all attitude has been a focus of Team USA’s women’s cross country ski team for a few Olympic cycles now. It’s what the athletes point to as the reason, after years of being mostly inconsequential in the international field, the Americans can no longer be overlooked.The most obvious marker of Team USA’s progress is theat the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. It was just the second Olympic medal of any kind in American cross country history.
One of those races is Wednesday’s team sprint classic, in which Diggins and Brennan will try to defend the USA’s gold medal. The last is the 30k mass start, which closes out the Games on Sunday.