20 kilometres Skiathlon, Women

Women’s skiathlon opened the 2026 Olympic cross-country skiing programme, with competitors starting with a 10 km classical leg, changing skis in a pit stop, and then skiing 10 km freestyle. The favorite was likely American [Jessie Diggins] who had been the overall and distance World Cup champion in 2021, 2024, and 2025, and had won the Tour de Ski in the 2025/26 season, after also winning that event in 2020/21 and 2024/25. Her biggest challengers were expected to be the Swedes, led by Ebba Andersson who had won the skiathlon World Championships in 2023 and 2025, and [Frida Karlsson], with two gold medals at the 2025 World Championships, and who had won the Tour de Ski in 2022/23.

At only 1,500 metres in the classical phase, Diggins collided with Norway’s Karoline Simpson-Larsen and both fell back, well off the lead. Karlsson led the classical phase, with Andersson in third, also behind Norwegian Astrid Slind.

Andersson briefly took the lead after the ski exchange, but Karlsson was too strong, posting the fastest freestyle time and winning the gold medal by over 50 seconds ahead of Karlsson. Norway’s Heidi Weng had the second-best freestyle leg and came home for the bronze medal. Weng was a veteran and had also won the bronze medal in this event back in 2014 at Sochi.

For Karlsson and Andersson it was the start of a dominant performance by the two Swedish women at Trentino. Karlsson would also win the 10 km freestyle event, and would have been favored in the 50 km, but she had to withdraw with a fever. Andersson won that race and added two more silver medals during the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Diggins, a better freestyler, had the third fastest time in that phase, but she had been 15th at the pit stop and could only claw back to eighth place overall. It was revealed after the race that she had bruised ribs in the collision with Simpson-Larsen, who eventually placed 13th overall, and it would hamper Diggins performances throughout the remainder of Milano-Cortina 2026.