TESERO, Italy — The United States’ most decorated cross-country skier of all time took a deep breath, smiled to the camera and pushed off.
Twenty-three minutes, 38.9 seconds later, Jessie Diggins crossed the finish line in third place and held on for a bronze medal in Thursday’s women’s 10-kilometer interval start freestyle, gutting through a rib injury for another podium finish in her final Olympics.
Sweden’s Frida Karlsson was too good to be caught, picking up her second gold and Sweden’s sixth women’s country skiing medal of the Games. Like Saturday’s skiathlon, she left her competition behind with a time of 22:49.2, followed by yet another Swedish silver, from Ebba Andersson, who trailed by 46.6 seconds.
Diggins holds her ribs and cries out in pain after getting up following her bronze-medal race on Thursday at the Olympics. (Anne-Christine Poujoulat / AFP via Getty Images)
After the race, Diggins, who finished 49.7 seconds off Karlsson’s time, collapsed to the snow and wheezed in agony for minutes. That’s not unusual for a cross-country race, but Diggins has been dealing with extra pain this week after a fall Saturday in her first event left her with bruised ribs.
Fans waved homemade signs reading “Digg Digg City” as Diggins entered the final stretch, doubled over, reaching deep. With a staggered start, U.S. fans held their breath as Norway’s Astrid Oeyre Slind pushed Diggins’ time, but Slind crossed the finish about four seconds behind the American for fourth.
Diggins is known for her ability to dig deep, to reach the depths of the so-called “pain cave” and come out better for it. That’s the kind of performance she needed on a day like Thursday, skiing through bruised ribs from a crash that left her in eighth in the skiathlon and 17th in the sprint over the past week.
The bronze is Diggins’ fourth medal in four Olympics, winning the country’s first-ever cross-country gold with Kikkan Randall in the team sprint in 2018, and individual silver in the 30-kilometer freestyle and bronze in the sprint in 2022. She plans to retire at the end of this season.
“The biggest thing, honestly, is I just ask myself, ‘How do you want to feel at the finish?’ ” Diggins said during an interview in August. “Because I’m so driven by the idea of never having to wonder what if.”