An injured Jessie Diggins will race the clock for her second-best chance at gold during Milan Cortina 2026 in the women’s cross-country skiing 10km freestyle event on Thursday.

Diggins won the 2023 world title and four World Cup races in the 10km freestyle, but since bruising her ribs in the skiathlon event on Saturday, anything could happen. In the women’s classic sprint on Tuesday, she couldn’t push through the quarterfinals, writing on social media that her injuries caught her off guard.

If any athlete can push past this setback, it’s Diggins, who often talks about skiing through the “pain cave.” In her post, she said, “All I can do is show up and give the very best that I can, one stride and one breath at a time, and that’s what I’ll keep doing the rest of these Games.”

If she or any other members of Team USA — Kendall Kramer, Hailey Swirbul, or Novie McCabe — top the podium, it would be just the second gold medal for the U.S. in the sport. Kramer will make her first Olympic appearance. 

At Tesero, the race will take athletes about 22 to 26 minutes to ski three laps around a 3.3-kilometer course for a total of 10 km (6.2 miles). The athletes will start at staggered times, going every 30 seconds to race for the fastest time.  

The winner of the race will be the skier who can bring power and focus to the difficult uphill portion of the course. The contenders to fit this bill could be the podium from the skiathlon: Sweden’s Frida Karlsson and Ebba Andersson, and Norway's Heidi Weng. Weng's teammate Karoline Simpson-Larsen was the World Cup winner of this event in December 2025.