TESERO, Italy — The U.S. women’s cross-country team delivered its strongest Olympic relay performance in history Saturday afternoon, finishing fifth in the 4×7.5-kilometer relay at the Tesero Cross-Country Stadium.
Julia Kern, Rosie Brennan, Novie McCabe and Jessie Diggins combined for a time of 1 hour 17 minutes and 37 seconds, just 1 minute, 52.2 seconds behind Norway, which claimed the gold.
Park City’s Brennan skied the second classic leg and handed off to teammate McCabe, the three-time NCAA champion from the University of Utah, with the Americans 43.8 seconds behind Norway’s lead.
Diggins raced the anchor leg just two days after earning bronze in the women’s 10-kilometer race on Thursday despite bruising her ribs in a fall earlier in the week.
“I knew it was going to be a really painful day, and that it was going to be hard to breathe,” Diggins said Thursday. “I was mentally ready for it.”
On Saturday, she again skied aggressively to the finish line on the final leg, bringing the U.S. up from sixth to fifth place overall, 16 seconds behind Germany.
Sweden took silver after Ebba Andersson fell and lost a ski near the end of her second leg, dropping Sweden more than a minute off the pace and into eighth. Her teammates Frida Karlsson and Jonna Sundling clawed the team back to second place, 50.9 seconds behind Norway, and Finland won bronze.