‘One of the best races of my life’

Before Tuesday, Sweden had taken three out of three gold medals in the women’s events in Planica and many wondered whether it was going to be Andersson who would win a fifth consecutive distance race or Karlsson, with 10km silver medals from the past two world championships, who would get to climb to the top of the podium this time.

Instead, Diggins showed early on that she was aiming to spoil the Swedish party, getting a margin of just under four seconds at the 2.2km mark to leave her main competitors trailing for the rest of the race. Enjoying the technical course in Planica, Diggins kept her speed and could keep control of Karlsson’s time as the Swedish Tour de Ski winner had started a minute before her.

At 7.7km, Diggins was five seconds before Karlsson. In the last 2.3km she extended her lead by nine seconds as Karlsson had to settle for a third consecutive world championship 10km silver.

“(It was) really hard. I couldn’t really feel my legs at the end, but that’s normal for me,” Diggins said.

“I was just trying to really push as hard as I could, I was really happy about the snow because I could really work the corners and this was the perfect course for me. A lot of fun downhills and I tried to just ski with a lot of joy and really attack the downhills, and go as hard as I could.”

Diggins, who finished second in the event at Falun, Sweden, in 2015, is the first non-European since 2017 to win a gold medal at the world championships.