Yes, that was Jessie Diggins you saw roller skiing around Park City

The 75 cross country ski athletes who participated in dry-land bounding training alongside one of their role models, Olympian Jesse Diggins in Park City. PCSS comp Team athlete Lucas Fasio among them. Photo: TownLift

'There's a lot of elite team athletes and junior skiers that were here for parts of the camp, joining, trying to grow the skiing community.'

PARK CITY, Utah — On Friday, if one of the roller skiers around the  Park Meadows neighborhood area looked faster or more famous than the rest, you were likely looking at U.S. Ski & Snowboard cross country athlete 32-year-old Jessie Diggins.

Who could forget Diggins’s heart-pounding finish capturing the gold for Team USA at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics?

She’s got three Olympic medals now, gold in PyeongChang 2018 in Team Sprint, silver in the 2022 Beijing 30km Freestyle, and bronze in Beijing 2022 in the Individual Freestyle Sprint.

Liz Stephen is the head coach for Park City Ski & Snowboard’s Cross Country Comp Team and a three-time Team USA Olympian. She told TownLift, “The U.S. team has just finished a team training camp for weeks in Park City. They combined with some other international skiers who were also here for parts of the workouts. It’s a combination of the US Ski Team efforts to try and bridge the gap between the clubs and the national team. So, there’s a lot of elite team athletes and junior skiers that were here for parts of the camp, joining, trying to grow the skiing community.” 

Five-time Olympic medalist representing Finland Krista Parmakoski joined the group as well.

Stephen went on to say, “It’s great to have so many world-class athletes here right now. And we’ve had the privilege of skiing and training with the UST men. One day they came and did a specific strength session with us and then we were repeating that same session and Jessie Diggins skied by and wanted to join so we’ve had some really great interaction with with these athletes and they’re all so personable.”

Park City High School student-athletes Ian Carmack and Liam Snihurowych felt lucky and a bit star-struck as Diggins took time to meet and greet them as they all skied in the back of their school grounds. Carmack told TownLift, ” It’s been great having all these people in town and get to learn different training techniques from from all kinds of different skiers, especially from all over the world.” Snihurowich added, “It’s definitely been super fun, I’ve learned some new drills and it’s been helping my skiing, so it’s cool.”