Diggins Eighth, McCabe 24th In Olympic Debut

Competing in what she admits is her weakest event at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, Jessie Diggins still put down an impressive performance in the women’s 10k classic, finishing eighth Thursday at the Kuyangshu Nordic Center, Zhangjiakou, China.

For Team USA, Rosie Brennan was 14th, followed by Novie McCabe, making her Olympic debut in 24th; and Hailey Swirbul in 32nd.

“This is undoubtedly my weakest event, but I was just so focused on enjoying it,” Diggins said. “I was just like ’great, no pressure,’ it was my day to go out there and enjoy racing at the Olympics, and especially seeing Novie doing her first Olympic race.”

Norway’s Therese Johaug won her second gold medal of the 2022 Games with a time of 28:06.3, just 0.4 seconds ahead of Finland’s Kerttu Niskanen. Finland’s Krista Parmakowski took the bronze 31.5 seconds back.

Following her fourth-place finish in the freestyle sprint, Brennan walked away from Thursday’s race confident her classic skiing is coming around at a convenient time with the women’s 4x5k relay coming up Saturday.

“I was really happy with the way I skied…I was a little disappointed to see the result thereafter,” Brennan said. “But I was focusing on how I felt and the fact that my classic (skiing) is coming along, and now we’ll turn to the relay.”

RESULTS
Women’s 10k Classic