Imagine the greatest in the world to have ever graced the snow with her skies comes from your country; imagine giving to the world the skier with 82 world cup wins; imagine giving the world likes of Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn and yet there’s this one thing, this one completion, this one medal that is yet to come to your country. Well, not anymore; the curse of the cross-country skiing world championships team sprint has been lifted, the American Skiing Pair has done it.
Jessie Diggins and Julia Kern are gonna go down in the history of American skiing as the Sorcerers who fought the curse of cross-country skiing world championships team sprint and triumphed over it. The pair on Wednesday, 5th March 2025, raced the snow in Trondheim, Norway in the team sprint event of FIS Nordic World Ski Championships and claimed the silver for the USA, racing through the 44-year-old curse.
The classic twist was introduced to team sprint in 1980; since then, despite winning multiple Olympic medals, training some of the best skiers in the world, USA had never claimed a podium finish until today. You may recall a win from 2018 when Diggins and Kikkan Randall became the first Americans to win cross-country skiing gold, but that was the XXIII Olympic Winter Games and not World championships.
Freestyle was also introduced in 1980 and Diggins, who cemented herself as one of the greatest skiers of the modern day while competing in Toblach, Italy, and Kern, now a two-time medalist, claimed bronze behind Sweden and Norway when it was a part of the 2023 worlds.
2022 Beijing Olympics – Cross-Country Skiing – Women’s 30km Mass Start Free – National Cross-Country Centre, Zhangjiakou, China – February 20, 2022. Silver medallist Jessie Diggins of the United States celebrates on the podium. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson
On Wednesday, Jonna Sundling and Maja Dahlqvist brought the gold for Sweden (20:51.6) while Switzerland went for the third; Jessie and Julia made sure of the Silver for USA and the two are proving to be a great team.
Team Spirit High in the American Skiing Pair
Anybody familiar with the snows of skiing is familiar with the friendship between Jessie Diggins and Julia Kern; the two have been training partners for over a decade now, and have been roommates for over years at different competitions. Kern was a bridesmaid in Diggins’ wedding in May, 2022, and also the national pair were a pair at their team, Stratton Mountain School Elite Team, in Vermont. Perhaps, it’s this friendship that writes history for the USA.
Bringing the country their first U.S. cross-country skiing medal at the world championships since 2017, in 2023 to breaking the 44-year-old curse today, the two have been amazing. After the race on Wednesday, the 2 time medalist said expressed her love for team events and that too because it does not limit her to herself but for her teammate as well, she said “We both love team events, because you’re not just fighting for yourself, but for each other and for our whole team and our staff that have put so much hard work into the skis today.” With such team chemistry, there is more success waiting around the corner!
The silver medalist did not forget to thank the people who worked behind the scenes, and neither did Diggins, for whom the silver marked the seventh career world championship medal, “Everyone’s been working so hard and giving it everything they have all week. Everything just came together today, which is really, really special. It’s something that I don’t take for granted.” Their bond is one for the books, with Jessie Diggins expressing her admiration for Kern, “I am so proud of Julia. That was some seriously amazing skiing.” The love and team spirit among these two often makes you long to see them together again.
The pair will most definitely be showing up for Milano Cortina 2026, while also focusing on their careers at the FIS Cross-Country World Cup circuit. According to you, what medals await these two brilliant skiers soon?
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