Jessie Diggins Wins U.S. Its First-Ever Medal in Cross Country Skiing Individual Sprint

Team USA's skier Jessie Diggins made history for the United States on Tuesday morning.

Diggins won the bronze medal in the women's cross country skiing individual sprint event. It's the first ever individual sprint medal in cross country skiing at the Winter Olympics for the United States.

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What a FINAL! 🥉

Jessie Diggins wins the first-ever sprint medal in cross-country skiing for @TeamUSA at the Olympic Games! Rosie Brennan finishes in fourth!#WinterOlympics pic.twitter.com/3aRHhGK7F0

— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 8, 2022

The 30-year-old finished the race with a time of 3:12.84, coming in third behind Sweden's Jonna Sundling and Maja Dahlqvist, who earned gold and silver, respectively.

USA's Rosie Brennan finished fourth in the finals of the event.

The two Swedes, along with countrywoman Emma Ribon, got out to an early lead in the race. But Diggins and Brennan, as well as Switzerland's Nadine Faehndrich, made a push by the midway point of the sprint, surpassing Ribon in a fight for silver and bronze.

While Sundling pulled way ahead of the pack -- finishing nearly three seconds ahead of Dahlqvist -- Diggins battled with Dahlqvist in the final stretch, with the Swede narrowly edging the American by 0.28 seconds.

It's the second medal for Diggins, who earned a gold in 2018 in the women's team sprint event.

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On the men's side, Norway's Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo beat out Italy's Federico Pellegrino by 0.26 seconds to win the gold in the men's cross country skiing individual sprint.

Klaebo snagged his fourth career gold medal after grabbing three in 2018.

The ROC's Alexander Terentev won the bronze.

Rounding out the rest of the USA skiers' performances, Julia Bern finished in fourth in her quarterfinals heat, so she did not move on to the semifinals. Hannah Halvorsen did not crack the top-30 needed to advance from the qualification round.

On the men's side, Ben Ogden made the semifinals after an opponent was disqualified after the quarterfinals and Ogden got in as the second lucky loser. However, he finished last in the semifinal.

JC Schoonmaker, Kevin Bolger and Luke Jager all advanced from the qualifiers to the quarterfinals, however, none of them qualified for the semifinals.