U.S. Ski & Snowboard announced a total of 21 skiers who have been named to the 2025-26 Stifel U.S. Cross-Country Ski Team. The team begins competition on Nov. 28 in Ruka, Finland at the first event of the FIS World Cup season.

Jessie Diggins, the most decorated U.S. cross-country skier of all time, headlines the team with three Olympic medals and seven world championship medals on her résumé. Two-time world championship medalist Julia Kern and Olympians Rosie Brennan, Gus Schumacher, Ben Ogden, JC Schoonmaker and Sophia Laukli round out the rest of the “A” team. The four women and three men all are returning members of the squad and were nominated to the team based on the U.S. Ski & Snowboard team’s selection criteria. The full roster can be found here.

Diggins won the 2025 FIS World Cup Crystal Globes for distance and overall. She's expected to compete for gold in the 10km freestyle and also is predicted to be a podium contender in skiathlon. Kern took home silver alongside Diggins in the women’s team sprint classic at the 2025 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships.

Schumacher and Ogden are seen as the best chances for the U.S. men to end the team's 50-year medal drought. Schumacher earned his first-ever World Cup win in Feb. 2024 in the 10km freestyle and became the youngest U.S. athlete ever to win a World Cup race. He also became the first American man ever to reach the World Cup podium in a 20km freestyle mass start race in Feb. 2025. The second-place finish was his second career World Cup podium appearance. Ogden took third place in the 10km freestyle in Jan. 2025. It marked his second career World Cup podium finish.

After the team's first World Cup competition in Ruka, the season continues in Trondheim, Norway and Davos, Switzerland before a truncated Tour de Ski in Toblach and Val di Fiemme, Italy. After the Tour de Ski, the team will compete in two World Cup weekends prior to the Milan Cortina Games in February. The U.S. will cap off the season with an FIS World Cup in Lake Placid, NY in March.

While the roster has been named for the World Cup season, the official Olympic team won't be announced until approximately Jan. 20, 2026. The Olympic roster selection criteria states that up to 75% of the total team quota (men and women athletes combined) will be filled by individual eligible athletes that finish in the top eight of the FIS Cross-Country World Cup results based on performances in evaluative events during the 2025-26 season prior to Jan. 19, 2026. Up to 25% of the total team quota is fulfilled by discretionary selection based on performances in evaluative events from the 2025-26 season prior to Jan. 19, 2026 and FIS World Cup cross-country competitions from Nov. 29, 2024 to March 23, 2025. 

Cross-country skiing at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics begins on Feb. 7 with the women's skiathlon.