When Jessie Diggins crossed the finish line first in Pyeongchang, she showed a new generation of skiers what was possible.Four years later, she helped them chase the same feeling.
At the 2018 Winter Olympics, Jessie Diggins won her first U.S. cross-country skiing medal since 1976.Credit… Kim Raff for The New York Times
PARK CITY, Utah — Four years ago, one morning in late February, Gus Schumacher woke up and immediately noticed a note his mother had left on his computer.
Schumacher knew which race his mother was referring to: the women’s team sprint at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.The race took place while he was sleeping, but Schumacher, the aspiring professional cross-country skier, did as he was told.In the darkness of Alaska, when he saw Jesse Deakins take her team’s gold with explosiveness and speed in the final turn in South Korea—the first U.S. cross-country skiing medal since 1976—everything As a competitive racer, he considered his future.
“It definitely changed my mindset,” said Schumacher, a 21-year-old Beijing Olympic Olympian.That way, he says, his dream of competing with the best skiers in the world doesn’t seem so far-fetched.”If things are going well, you can do that too. And I’m not the only one who thinks that way.”
American athletes have won more than 300 medals at the Winter Olympics.Few, however, have had such a profound impact on an American team as the 30-year-old Deakins and her now-retired teammate Kikkan Randle won four years ago.For four decades, American cross-country skiers have fallen far behind their Scandinavian competitors.Now, in a short video clip, they both see that peaking is possible.
“All these years of waiting, waiting for something to happen, and then something big happened,” said Kevin Bolger, another member of Team USA in Beijing.
The medal remains a touchstone moment that marks the front and rear of the team.In addition to changing the worldview of dozens of American skiers, the victory gave Diggins a rare role for a female athlete: as the de facto captain of a men’s and women’s team and her leading role in the sport in the United States. leader.condition.
She is a skier who organizes team building activities during training camp, such as watching “The Great British Bake Off” or a Bob Ross video on a team painting night, or choreographing another team dance.She’s the one to answer teammates’ questions about training and life on the World Cup circuit.She’s an achiever that young men and women alike want to emulate, and one that ski federation officials want to get more support for everyone.
“I want to look back on my career and not just, ‘Aren’t I great?’” Deakins said in a recent interview in the lobby of the American Ski and Snowboard Association’s Utah training center, where a 10-foot-tall of her flag on the rafters.”I would say I used my time wisely. I helped improve the culture of skiing in America. I helped develop the sport. I helped the team grow.”
Deakins, a slender 5-foot-4 with bright eyes and a contagious smile, didn’t intend to play such a big role.But she can persevere, especially when lobbying her federation for the kind of support — financial and otherwise — that she and her teammates say they need to compete with better-funded teams.
On Saturday, Deakins started her 15K women’s biathlon event in Beijing, half classical and half freestyle.
She was haunted by the early days of her career, when the European national team’s ski wax budget exceeded the entire budget of the U.S. cross-country team.Deakins’ request brought the team a full-time traveling chef, more physical therapists, and money to allow teammates with less lucrative sponsorships to focus on training rather than second jobs.
She also won a lot, which of course helped her voice.Deakins won her first world championship gold medal in 2013.Since then, she has won 3 and 12 World Cup titles.Last season, she became the first American woman to win the Cross Country World Cup overall.
Deakins’ unique position on Team USA may also have to do with the team’s logistics and demographics.As her performance in recent years began to peak, several veterans on the team retired.Suddenly, Deakins was not only the most accomplished skier on the team, but also one of the most experienced.
Also, since almost all World Cup matches are played overseas, the men and women of the team live, eat, train, travel and play together between November and March each year.They also participate in off-season training camps.This created a touring group that was both the ski team and the Partridge family.
In recent years, men on the team who have yet to perform at the level of Diggins and some of her female teammates have noticed how Diggins and other women prioritize helping each other.This can be as simple as making sure you’re on time, or packing lunch for a teammate who must have a blood test in the morning.But trust can also involve more nuanced behaviors: encouraging a skier to have a bad day, or celebrating someone who has a good day, even if you don’t.
“Jesse always said that Olympic medals belong to everyone,” said Bolger, a 28-year-old sprint expert who has been with the national team for the past three years.
No one pays more attention to Diggins than 24-year-old Julia Kern, who went to Dartmouth last season to be Diggins’ roommate in Europe and to train with Diggins in Vermont.Four years ago, Kern was playing a low-level tournament in Germany when Deakins and Randall won gold in Pyeongchang.She and her teammates postponed training sessions so they could watch the game live, and then bragged to everyone she talked to that night.
When Kern first met Deakins, she said, she was curious to know the ingredients of her secret sauce.After living with Diggins, Kern quickly realized it was no secret: Diggins, she said, ate well, slept well, trained hard, and did what she needed to get back to her next workout.Then she wakes up and does it all over again day in and day out, believing that the work of creating her gold medal will one day yield another.
Her success brought higher expectations and new pressures.Deakins manages it through mental, physical, and technical preparation: countless hours watching videos, timed training sessions to improve her classic skiing technique, and striving to become a stronger all-around skier.
She has started meditating so she can calm herself and lower her heart rate before the race.She has also honed her visualization skills so she can close her eyes and see every turn of the Olympic Stadium built on a punishing hillside in Yanqing.
Yet she knows how ruthless the Olympics can be.One blunder, one blunder, could be the difference between winning and finishing long distances on the podiums of making careers and legends.All she can do, she said, is make sure she’s ready to cross the finish line without the energy, completely immersed in a “cave of pain.”
That’s what Scott Patterson, who has been training with Diggins for over a decade, remembers seeing at Diggins four years ago.That day, he watched from one side of the Pyeongchang track, then sprinted through the snow to celebrate with Deakins across the finish line.In fact, they celebrated so long that stadium officials eventually had to kick the Americans out so they could start the next game.
Three days later, as Patterson lined up for the Olympic 50-kilometer race, he said one thought kept flashing through his mind: Women did it.Now this is my chance.He finished 11th, an American’s best finish at that distance.
The events of that week, and the leadership Diggins has shown since then, recreated a world in which American cross-country skiers know they can be the best on the biggest stage.
Post time: Feb-21-2022
