Skier Jessie Diggins finished the Olympics exactly how she wanted: With absolutely nothing left

ZHANGJIAKOU, China - At the finish line, Jessie Diggins summoned the same effort she had four years ago, a level of exertion most humans may never know. Everything else Wednesday night was different. Up ahead there was no teammate rushing at her with an American flag, only skiers celebrating their own indelibly close victory. There was no national embrace, only personal pride. There was no medal, only pain.

As Diggins began the final lap of the women’s cross-country team sprint, she had a chance to defend the iconic gold medal she won at PyeongChang. Teammate Rosie Brennan had left her in third place, in the thick of the lead clump of skiers. On an uphill early in the lap, skiers from Germany and Finland pulled away. Diggins faded to fifth and lost contact with the lead pack. She dug and dug, but the gap remained. There would be no here-comes-Diggins moment.

Diggins crossed in fifth. Her skis spread and she collapsed on to her side. She felt dizzy and sick. Brennan leaned down, a gray blanket around her shoulders, and patted Diggins on the back. As Diggins heaved for air, Brennan unfastened her skis. Diggins rolled to her back and tried to rise. Her head plopped back into the snow. About 80 seconds after she finished, Diggins held out her hand, and Brennan hoisted her to her feet. They hugged. Brennan removed her blanket and wrapped it around Diggins.

On her feet, her bearings found, Diggins walked to the fence, hugged a team official - and smiled. Four years ago, Diggins had authored maybe the moment of the Winter Olympics, charging from behind on the last lap to win gold - the first women’s Olympic cross-country medal ever for the United States - with partner Kikkan Randall by less than the length of a ski.

It may have been the same event, but it was not even close to being the same race. The team sprint alternates every four years between freestyle - Diggins’s best discipline, in which shorter skis and more rigid boots are used - and classic. The course was different. It was at different elevation, nearly 2,000 feet higher than Daegwallyeong, South Korea.

“I’m not trying to compare today to four years ago,” Diggins said. “Literally, nothing is the same. And that’s OK. Today was going out there and skiing for Rosie and skiing as hard as I could and as best as I could. I’m really proud of this fight.”

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Diggins, 30, outwardly downplays her results and carries the same goal into every race: to finish with nothing left. She still manages some gaudy results. She has validated her place near the top of cross-country skiing the past four years, and even at these Olympics, she has won a free sprint bronze and racked up top-eight finishes in all five events she has entered.

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She understood the classic style would not play to her strengths. In her first event of the Games, the 7.5 km + 7.5 km skiathlon, she was in 11th after the classic portion of the race then finished sixth after posting the best time in free by a wide margin. She had used the 10 km classic to hone her classic technique for Wednesday night, when she wanted to ski her best for Brennan.

Randall retired after the PyeongChang Games, and Brennan, 33, now an Anchorage resident, emerged as the second-best cross-country skier in the United States after a winding career. She made her first Olympic team in PyeongChang, but a bout of mononucleosis sapped her strength. She skied in one event and finished 58th. She called it the worst race of her life. Months later, she was cut from the U.S. team for the second time, only to regain her spot over the past four years with the best skiing of her life.

Brennan already had redeemed her PyeongChang performance at these Olympics, finishing in the top 14 of all four races she’d entered, including fourth in the sprint free, by the time she approached the starting line Wednesday night. She would ski first, then Diggins, in six alternating laps.

Brennan finished her first lap in fourth place, in a pack of skiers. Diggins quickly nudged into second, briefly seized the lead and handed the race back to Brennan in second, inches behind Sweden. Brennan fell off pace then recovered, passing off to Diggins in fourth, but just 0.9 seconds behind the leader. Diggins fell to third, 2.5 seconds out of first. Brennan maintained the spot and shrunk the deficit to 2.2 seconds. She had done her job.

“I did what I could to stay in contact to give Jessie her best shot,” Brennan said. “I’m happy with that.”

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Diggins shot off the line, same as the other laps, but Germany and Sweden pulled away. On an uphill, the gap widened, and it became clear there would be no 2018 reprise. She finished 12.93 seconds behind the German gold medalists, who edged Sweden and beat bronze medalists Russian Olympic Committee with room to spare. Did anything earlier in the race lead Diggins to believe the lead pack would pull away? Did the separation surprise her?

“I don’t really know how to answer the question,” Diggins said. “I was just focused on skiing as hard as I could.”

Winter Olympians often talk past the media and public that watches them intently once every four years. They are experts at sports most observers know little about, if they’ve heard of them at all. It’s often said athletes spend four years preparing for the Olympics, but that’s not true. Brennan has established herself as a force at international events. Diggins last year won the Tour de Ski, a multistage event that suggests sustained excellence.

Olympians are also disproportionately rewarded for their Olympic performances - Diggins did not make the cover of Sports Illustrated because she won the Tour de Ski. In the United States, one race can open worlds of opportunity that years of dominance on the international circuit would not. Brennan has fourth- and fifth-place finishes at these Olympics; a few more seconds and her profile back home would be drastically different. Diggins and Brennan seemed not to care about that, likely to their benefit.

“One thing the U.S. is really bad at is only caring about the Olympics,” Brennan said. “We’re racing World Cups every weekend all winter long and world championships on the other years. If you look at the results from all those races, this is in the ballpark. I wouldn’t say I had the world’s best races and certainly not the world’s worst races. It’s been a good experience, and we’ll head straight back to World Cup and keep fighting.”

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Diggins expressed no discontent with her performance. She deemed it some of her best classic skiing from a technical standpoint. She felt like she had expended all the sugars in her body, leaving only lactic acid and gulps of air. There was no medal. No matter how difficult it may be for others to understand, there was still a reward.

By the end, Diggins had no chance for fourth, nine seconds behind Finland. She could have skied 32 seconds slower and still claimed fifth. She still skied herself dizzy and nauseous.

“I’m really proud of how we skied,” Diggins said. “It was so cool to see Rosie just crushing. I went as hard as I could, and there’s no doubt in my mind I could not have possibly tried harder.”