Special Tour for home hope Pellegrino (ITA) as he plans for ’perfect way’ to end career

This year's Tour de Ski is special for home hope Federico Pellegrino (ITA), in more ways than one. 

Not only is it the first all-Italian edition of the Tour and the first hosted by only one nation.

For the 34-year-old from the Aosta Valley in northern Italy, the 2024/2025 Tour de Ski marks the beginning of the end. Having announced that he will will retire after the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, the Val di Fiemme races will be a first chance for Pellegrino to compete on the Games tracks where he will bid farewell to a long career in 13 months and a couple of weeks.

"This year will be special because all the races will be in Italy and the goal is to be good and healthy enough in the first part of Tour de Ski in Toblach, so that I can go to Val di Fiemme and in the best possible way use it as a pre-event for the Olympic Games next year," Pellegrino said.

"To have the possibility to race in the best health and shape condition possible in these tracks that are really important for the next year."

And so far it has gone well. After two stages in Toblach, the home hero is third in the overall Tour de Ski rankings, after Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo (NOR) and Richard Jouve (FRA). He finished seventh in Saturday's Sprint and pulled off an impressive eighth-place in Sunday's 15km Mass Start Classic, making sure the home fans had plenty to cheer for.

At Milano Cortina 2026, Pellegrino is likely to have a majority of the crowd at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium supporting him. He hopes to get a taste of that feeling also in the Tour de Ski.

"I think it will be good, it happens sometimes that we have a good crowd there," Pellegrino said.

"I however like to stay a bit more focused on the competitive part now and I'm sure that if everything is going well, then I can be good.

"And what we can say as athletes is that the tracks for sure will be perfect, as always in Italy, so good performances will have the possibility to be done."

It was in July that Pellegrino announced the date that he would retire from the sport he has competed in at a world level since February 2009. In an Instagram post with a black background he had written: 22 February 2026.

"Let's see if it will be the perfect way to end my career, by giving my best, and in Italy with all the fans and family," said Pellegrino, who has one world title and two Olympic silver medals in Sprint to his name.

"The Italian goal is to get a medal in a team event, and since I've won two silver medals at the Olympic Games, but in individual races, this is something that I miss; a team medal. 

"So I would like to give my best for sure, not only on the tracks but by helping my teammates to grow and maybe to have this good experience to win a medal with my teammates."

Before the grand finale, Pellegrino knows that he will be able to train more on the Val di Fiemme tracks. To do it alongside the best skiers in the world giving their all for the Tour de Ski and Coop FIS Cross-Country World Cup points, however, makes this Tour a rare chance that he wants to make the most of.

"The Olympic Games is in my home country and for sure we have the possibility to do trainings and a competitions there, but the World Cup season is really tight and full so we would not have too much time to train there and that's why I think the Tour de Ski races will be really important for the next season," he said.

Two of the seven Tour de Ski races are sprints, but sprint specialist Pellegrino sees the Tour as something for everyone on the World Cup circuit.

"This Tour de Ski, as it has been built in the last two seasons, is something that tries to elevate the overall athletes to give their best," he said.

"It's not only a specialisation of endurance athletes, you have to be fast and strong in both skating techniques, short and long races, mass starts and individual races, and then for sure this unique (final climb) race at Alpe Cermis.

"It is a big challenge but I think I can be good in an overall competition as I've been in the last years in the overall World Cup. Tour de Ski is a little overall World Cup."

And to excel in seven stages in nine days, it is not just the physical shape that gets properly tested in a way that could serve as preparation for competitions such as the world championships or the Olympic Games.

"It's not only a one-day competition but a two-week competition," Pellegrino said.

So who did Pellegrino see as the main contestants for the overall Tour de Ski title before the action began?

"This year, for sure the two Norwegians, Klaebo and (Harald Oestberg) Amundsen, are the most complete and strong athletes," he said.

"But they are not the only ones and we will see – it will depend a lot on the snow conditions. That can change the toughness of the races a lot."

Amundsen is eighth in the Tour standings, one minute and two seconds behind leader Klaebo. With two wins in two races, Klaebo has taken two big steps towards equalling the record of four Tour de Ski titles held by Dario Cologna (SUI).

But with five events to go, Klaebo knows that anything can happen.

"There are still five more races and we've got 20k here on Tuesday, so it's going to be a hard Tour," Klaebo said after Sunday's 15km Mass Start Classic win.

And even as a sprint specialist, Pellegrino knows that a Tour de Ski is rather a marathon than a three-minute race.

"The two sprint races can give some bonus seconds for the overall ranking but on the other hand, the sprints are the hardest days to race on because the competition is not only for three minutes that you do four times, but for four hours that are really hard to manage," the two-time World Cup sprint champion, currently fifth in the standings, said.

"If the snow is not too hard, it is so expensive in terms of energy. You can reach some bonus seconds but then you can also lose a lot of energy. And in the economy of the whole Tour de Ski, this thing can do the difference."

Deciding to quit skiing in February 2026 also means the FIS Nordic Ski World Championships 2025 in Trondheim, Norway, will be Pellegrino's last world championships.

"It will be my eighth world ski championships and I still have the memories of my first, at Holmenkollen in 2011, also in Norway, very fresh in my mind, " he said.

"I was still 20 and it was a super way to start on the biggest stage of Cross-Country skiing. To end my world championships career back in Norway again, in such an important event for Norway, will be really, really good."

He may have started a long set of different lasts, but whether the 2024/2025 Tour de Ski will be his last edition of the Tour is still not sure.

"We will see," Pellegrino said.

"Maybe next year the goals will be different. Now I am a dad of one, but in spring, my wife and I will have a second baby, and at the moment I know that I can manage to have this kind of life but I don't know if it will be the same next year.

"Maybe I'll have to decide to stay more focused on some of the races and maybe Tour de Ski will not be one of those."

Whether he will bid farewell to Tour de Ski this winter or next, however, Pellegrino said the tough final climb at Alpe Cermis is not one of the things he will miss the most when his career is over.

"I know what it is like and I will not cry when it is the last time."

In the women's Tour, defending champion and this year's overall World Cup leader Jessie Diggins (USA) has got a firm grip of a third title. The 33-year-old surprised herself by claiming the third Sprint victory of her career on Saturday and won her first Classic race in the 15km Mass Start on Sunday.

That gives her a 38-second gap down to No.2 in the Tour standings, Finland's Kerttu Niskanen, 36, after two of seven stages. Another 36-year-old, Astrid Oeyre Slind (NOR), is in third place, one minute and nine seconds after Diggins.

The 2024/2025 Tour de Ski continues on New Year's Eve with the Men's and Women's 20km Interval Start Free in Toblach.

Click here for the Tour de Ski schedule and results for Toblach, here for schedule and results for Val di Fiemme and here to see the overall standings.

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