Tears of joy as Diggins claims her first individual world title: 'One of the best races of my life'

USA's Jessie Diggins crushed the competition in the women's 10km individual start free on Tuesday, with one of the most impressive races of the 2023 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Planica, Slovenia.

The 31-year-old broke the Swedish women's dominance in Planica to claim her first individual world title, finishing 14 seconds before Sweden's Frida Karlsson, who had to settle for silver. Ebba Andersson, another gold medal favourite from Sweden, finished third.

Diggins struggled to hold back the tears of joy afterwards, shining along with the trademark glitter make up on her cheeks.

"That was so emotional, that was amazing. I've just got to say thank you to the team," she said.

"That was one of the best races of my whole life and I knew I felt good and I was in a good shape, but you also have to have great skis and good wax. And I had everything I needed today. They worked so hard to make this possible, I'm just so happy."

Before Tuesday, Sweden had taken three out of three gold medals in the women's events in Planica and many wondered whether it was going to be Andersson who would win a fifth consecutive distance race or Karlsson, with 10km silver medals from the past two world championships, who would get to climb to the top of the podium this time.

Instead, Diggins showed early on that she was aiming to spoil the Swedish party, getting a margin of just under four seconds at the 2.2km mark to leave her main competitors trailing for the rest of the race. Enjoying the technical course in Planica, Diggins kept her speed and could keep control of Karlsson's time as the Swedish Tour de Ski winner had started a minute before her.

At 7.7km, Diggins was five seconds before Karlsson. In the last 2.3km she extended her lead by nine seconds as Karlsson had to settle for a third consecutive world championship 10km silver.

"(It was) really hard. I couldn't really feel my legs at the end, but that's normal for me," Diggins said.

"I was just trying to really push as hard as I could, I was really happy about the snow because I could really work the corners and this was the perfect course for me. A lot of fun downhills and I tried to just ski with a lot of joy and really attack the downhills, and go as hard as I could.”

Diggins, who finished second in the event at Falun, Sweden, in 2015, is the first non-European since 2017 to win a gold medal at the world championships.

Andersson, who won Saturday's skiathlon in a dominant fashion, finished 19.5 seconds after Diggins to match her bronze medal from the event at the last world championships, in Oberstdorf, Germany, in 2021. She had been 1.1 seconds after the American at 4.5km, but did not have the power to match Diggins in the long downhill sections.

"It was a tough one today. You didn't get anything for free and it was hard to keep pushing during the whole race but I tried my very best and it was a long time ago since I was this exhausted," Andersson said.

"She was strong today and as usual she is strong in the downhill. I just tried to go as fast as I could today and it was enough for this bronze medal."

Norway's Anne Kjersti Kalvaa and Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg finished fourth and fifth respectively, with Italy's Francesca Franchi in sixth.

As the world championship action continues into March, next up is the men's 15km individual free on Wednesday.

Click here for full results from the women's 10km individual start free.