January 02, 2019 (Oberstdorf, Germany) – Tough snowy weather conditions saw the USA’s Jessie Diggins battle to 11th while her teammate Sadie Bjornsen finished 15th on Stage 4 at the challenging women’s 10km CL mass start race in Oberstdorf on Wednesday.

Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg of Norway took the win by 0.1 seconds over Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva in second followed by Anastasia Sedova in third. With her victory the Norwegian reclaimed the overall race lead.

Emily Nishikawa, 29, the lone Canadian climbed seven spots in the back half of the race to finish in 34th for her best result in her first career Tour de Ski.

A number of teams including the Americans suffered with icing skis as they missed the wax selection. “We missed the boat on the wax today, but I fought as hard as I could and I know I’m in great shape right now,” said Diggins. “I did everything I could with what I had today. And now the pressure of the leader’s bib is 100 percent off, and I’m just going to ski as hard as I can tomorrow and recover as smart as I can.”

“It’s a bummer to have a day like today because my body felt really good, and I really like this course for classic skiing, but that’s life,” said Bjornsen. “Sometimes you have to just laugh it off and hope you can learn something as a team from the experience. Thursday will be the last race of my tour, as I have planned to not complete the full tour this year and try to do a training block without too much-accumulated race fatigue.”

Results here.