January 01, 2018 (Lenzerheide, Switzerland) – American Jessie Diggins skied to her first podium this season in the women’s 10km FR Pursuit race at round three of the Tour de Ski making it three straight podiums for Team USA.

Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg won again over teammate Heidi Weng in second and heads into the first rest day of the Tour with a 32-second margin in the overall standings. Diggins holds onto third.

Diggins’ teammate Sadie Bjornsen is having a great Tour as well but dropped from fourth to fifth today. Fellow American Sophie Caldwell was 18th, Liz Stephen was 28th, Rosie Brennan was 33rd and Ida Sargent is 55th.

“I’ve been really patient this year and believed in my plan, and this Tour I’ve finally been feeling those sharper race feelings again which is so much fun,” shared Diggins. “Today my plan was to go out hard and ski a gutsy race, and try to put some time into the girls behind me.

“It’s sometimes hard to be skiing alone but I actually loved it because I could just put my head down, hammer, and do my thing! It’s really fun to be in podium position right now in the Tour, but my plan as always is to just take it one day at a time and focus on each stage separately. If I can give my best effort each day, hopefully it all adds up well.”

Bjornsen admitted it was a bit terrifying to start fourth. “It was my goal to try to catch Jessie, and ski with her and I got darned close. Then I was on a solo mission and needed to really push hard to stay ahead of the group behind me,” said Bjornsen. “I managed to stay ahead until literally the last downhill, and got passed by Krista [Parmakoski], so lost one place, but I left the day pretty satisfied.”

Looks like the new US wax truck is paying dividends. “I was really proud of our wax tech team because the past two races have been extremely tricky waxing conditions with varying snow all over the course,” added Diggins. “It was hard to pick skis but my technician (Jason) Cork was so calm and collected and got me through the pre-race testing.”

The Tour now takes a short one-day break with athletes traveling to Oberstdorf, Germany for a classic sprint on Wednesday. “I’m really looking forward to a day off, and then some classic sprinting,” said Bjornsen.

Results here.
Standings here.