February 24, 2019 (Seefeld, AUT) – Team USA’s Sadie Bjornsen and Jessie Diggins skied to a hard-fought fifth-place in the women’s Team Sprint CL, 6 x 1.2 km, as Sweden’s Stina Nilsson and Maja Dahlqvist captured gold at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championship in Seefeld, Austria.

Slovenia’s Katja Visnar and Anamarija Lampic were the surprise silver medalists followed by Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Maiken Caspersen Falla in third. Team Canada’s Dahria Beatty and Emily Nishikawa finished 12th overall.

“My goal was to be in a good position on the first lap and then push the pace on the next two laps to try to give some room for Jessie, but off the start I was in the back row and it was super hard to get to the front,” said Bjornsen, who was the lead-off skier for six-lap race on the 1.2km course. “At the start of my final lap I was a little separated and tried to use the downhill to get back with the group, but it was so high speed it was really hard to make any distance out there.”

“It wasn’t a course that suits our strengths, it wasn’t very long or overly challenging and we did the very best we could,” said Diggins. “It was hard because we both found ourselves stuck without a window to move so we weren’t able to use our best assets. You won’t find a team who wanted it or worked harder for it more than we did. It didn’t work out for us this time but it has in the past and it can again in the future. We are moving forward with a lot of positivity and preparing for the rest of the races.”

Results here.