Jessie Diggins became the first North American to win the Tour de Ski during the first week of 2021. For those who don't know the Tour de Ski is like a week long road cycling race for elite XC skiers on the World Cup tour, its been going for about 15 years. Diggins won gold in the team sprint with Kikkan Randall at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. She has been a highly professional dedicated athlete on the tour for a number of years and a great role model for the sport. This is a major breakthrough for her but was helped by the fact that no Norwegians competed because their governing body refused to let them go due to what they believed were inadequate covid protocols. The Nordic World Champs are on in Oberstdorf Germany in late February and the Norwegians will be competing so it will be interesting to see what happens then.

Full report from the Faster skier website:

https://fasterskier.com/2021/01/diggins-becomes-the-first-north-american-to-win-the-tour-de-ski/