What a Difference Eight Years Makes

Inside the quiet transformation powering U.S. cross country skiing’s Olympic medal push

When Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall won the team sprint at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games, their Olympic gold medal was a boon to U.S. cross country skiing. It brought awareness to the sport and more kids excited to try it.

It also had a big payoff within the U.S. Ski Team itself. Both the U.S. Ski Team higher-ups and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee’s high performance department rolled up their sleeves — and opened the coffers — to help improve the infrastructure behind the team. The team’s budget is now 60 percent greater than it was in 2018. Although that number is tempered somewhat by increasing costs and the U.S. dollar getting clobbered by the Swiss franc (and “we pay for everything in Swiss francs on the World Cup right now,” says Chris Grover, U.S. cross country program director), it has helped fund a few key line items.

These behind-the-scenes improvements have already helped fuel great performances, like Diggins and Gus Schumacher winning the 5-kilometer skate heat mass start in the 2025/2026 Tour de Ski. For the first time in history, an American man and an American woman won a cross country World Cup on the same day.

“Huge congratulations to all of the wax techs,” Diggins said after the race. “Today’s win was a huge part thanks to them.”

But it’s more than great wax that will help U.S. skiers win medals at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics. Here’s a look at how the team behind the team has changed since Diggins’s and Randall’s inspirational Olympic gold medal in 2018.

The Grind Arms Race

Perhaps most important, improved funding from the U.S. Ski Team and USOPC allowed the team to purchase a grind machine — from the Ski Rack in Burlington, Vermont — and a small box truck to ferry it around the World Cup tour. With fluorocarbon wax banned by FIS starting in 2023, base grind has become more important in determining ski speed.

“A lot of the game has changed, especially since the 2018 Olympics,” explains Grover. “Grinding has become a big, big part of the sport.”

The U.S. team now has a head grind tech and a crew of technicians working on the team’s skis, both during the season and in the off-season. The challenge, however, is the U.S. is far behind in the grind arms race. Its main competitors — namely Norway and Sweden — have established grind programs, with techs developing grinds for every venue on the World Cup tour.

“We’re still getting up to speed,” says Grover, literally and metaphorically.

This was evident last winter at world championships. Weather in Trondheim, Norway, was unusually wet, and on wet, dirty snow, grind plays an important role.

Fortunately, the 2026 Olympic cross country ski venue — Val di Fiemme — typically experiences cold dry weather, and the courses are layered with manmade snow. These conditions tend to equalize the grind game. And the U.S. skiers have had many a good result at Val di Fiemme.

On another positive note: the fluorocarbon ban put all the teams on a more level playing field, as everyone had to learn the new non-fluoridated products at the same time.

Experienced Service Team

In addition to the new grind truck and crew, the U.S. team has a larger service team than it had in 2018, with eight on staff now (instead of six or seven). And the team is very experienced, with Oleg Ragilo still the head of service, the same role he held in 2018. From Estonia, Ragilo started as a wax tech in 2001 and first worked for the U.S. team in 2008.

“We’ve been able to hire some very experienced people since (2018),” says Grover, including Bernie Nelson, the first woman to work as a service tech for the U.S. team. “I feel like we’re going to the Olympics with the best and most experienced staff that we’ve ever had.”

It Takes A Village … Unless You’re At the Olympics

For many Olympians, the athlete village is a highlight of the Games, where bobsledders and figure skaters mingle with myriad skiers. But for those who want to win medals, the athlete village can be a venue of virus roulette. The vast gathering of nations can create a petri dish of germs, especially in the cafeteria.

So for the first time ever, the U.S. cross country ski team is not staying at the athlete village for the 2026 Milano Cortina Games. Improved funding has allowed them to rent out an entire small hotel in the Val di Fiemme region.

“It’s something we’ve been identifying for a long time as very necessary in order to preserve the health of everyone,” explains Grover.

As For The Athletes …

The only athletes still on the U.S. team from 2018 are Diggins and Rosie Brennan, who came within a breath of winning an Olympic medal in the skate sprint at the 2022 Olympics. For the past year, Brennan has been managing a long-term illness and hopes to find her form in at least one race at the Milano Cortina Games, while Diggins will be a favorite in any event she enters. She and Julia Kern, a 2022 Olympian, have won medals in the team sprint at the past two world championships.

New for the U.S. at this Games is the strength and depth of the men’s team. Schumacher has two World Cup wins (and counting) on his resume and has become a good sprinter, too. Ben Ogden is also familiar with the podium in both sprint and distance events. These two men were on the history-making relay teams that won gold at 2019 and 2020 world junior championships.

“We have an opportunity to take medals on the men’s side and the women’s side, which I don’t think we were there necessarily in the last Games,” says Grover. “With athletes like Ben and Gus, Jessie and Julia, we’ll be looking at those team sprints. And there are a number of other athletes who could absolutely factor into some of our team and individual events.

“It’s really exciting for us to have someone who could win a race both on the men’s and women’s side.”

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