Therese Johaug topped a 1-2 finish for Norway in the Tour de Ski women’s event with a dominant win in the final climbing stage Sunday, foiling American Jessie Diggins’ bid to win the overall title for a third time.
Norway’s Astrid Oeyre Slind took second, 47 seconds behind Johaug over the seven stages. Diggins finished third overall, 2 minutes, 41 seconds off the lead.
The weeklong event, part of the World Cup season, is the most grueling in cross-country skiing, featuring seven stages over nine days and more than 80 kilometers of racing, testing both the classic method (where skiers move in a straight-line motion over tracks in the snow) and freestyle (where skiers push off to the sides, like skating), as well as sprint and endurance distances.
Sunday’s final stage was a 10-kilometer freestyle climb up an alpine skiing course with an average 12-percent grade in the Val de Fiemme in Italy, the region that will host cross-country skiing at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics. Diggins — who teamed with Kikkan Randall in 2018 to win the first-ever Olympic gold medal in cross-country skiing for the U.S. — started the day in third place overall, 1:47 off the lead.
Diggins, 33, led after each of the first three stages and won the first two — including her first-ever win in…
