Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (NOR), fresh off his 77^th career victory, doesn’t mince words. “I wish it could be part of the World Cup circuit every year. The atmosphere was amazing […] I felt really good to win today – I felt like when I was warming up, ‘Ok, I really want to do this.’ It was so much fun to hear all the people.” And the sound? “You can’t even hear your own breath.”

At the end of his successful qualifying round, proud Midwesterner Kevin Bolger agreed: “You forget about everything, you forget about how your legs feel, you forget about what you’re doing, because there’s so much noise going on – the spectators are fucking incredible.” The Italian phenom, Elia Barp, was more succinct at the end of his quarterfinal: With the roar of the crowd, “You don’t feel anything.”

For Andrew Musgrave (GBR), it was simply “Good craic.”

Podiums be damned, the Americans were, of course, the stars of the day. Irrespective of their race results, they basked in the Minneapolis crowds – that seething mass Senator Amy Klobuchar convoked as denizens of the state where “the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are above average!”

Whether or not it could hear the Senator above the expectant chatter, the assembled throng delivered on her superlatives. For Rosie Brennan, today was about more than numbers. While she anticipated the turnout, she admitted: “I didn’t anticipate what it would feel like. I spend four to five months every year in Europe. Of course, I call home, I call my coach, I call these people who tell me that everybody’s cheering for me, but oftentimes you feel super alone. You don’t feel like what you’re doing is making an impact at home.” To race in the United States – “I feel like it’s a career’s worth of [realizing] we’ve actually had an impact on this community. It’s so heartwarming. I’m just bubbling with joy.”

Minnesotan Zak Ketterson, who I spoke with last week, told me that Minneapolis “exceeded any expectations [he] could ever have.” Wirth delivered the “loudest, most well-attended” race. And the crowd picked clear favorites: “When you go to races like Holmenkollen, they’re never cheering for you […] When they announced my name and said I was from Bloomington [a suburb of Minneapolis], and the crowd was just yelling – that’s why you ski.”

Although frustrated with a racing contact that jarred her from an ideal spot, Julia Kern delivered an admirably-positive report for the day’s events. She looked past coming “to a dead stop” during a ski-stomp on the course’s decisive hill, and reflected on the emotions of the day: “Jessie and I just kept trying to hold back the tears, because you look around and you’re like, ‘Holy shit, I’ve never experienced anything like this before – and it’s more than I could have dreamed of.’”

The course was, in Bolger’s words, “A lot harder than we thought it was going to be.” According to Mika Vermeulen (AUT) – whose Skirious Problem was qualifying with “no idea how [heats] are going to work” – the course was “quite tough, because it’s just climbing basically, all the way.” The downhills were short enough to ensure the course required “working, working, working.” Team France Women’s Coach Alexandre Pouyé described the strategy: While the opening, rolling climbs were “very physical,” the climb up Theodore Wirth’s tubing hill was the “big factor in performance.”

Jonna Sundling (SWE), the day’s long-denied victor, agreed. The decisive part of the course was “the last hill.” Getting “a good start,” and not “stressing too much” were additional keys today – but more importantly, Sundling had “a really good feeling in [her] body.”

“I am enjoying it,” she summarized.

During warmups, as I shouted above the crowd noise – and a four-foot height difference between the freshly-snowed ground and the skate deck – to speak with Pouyé, he reflected a popular sentiment: “Jessie will be hard to fight.”

“Even in the sprints?” I asked Pouyé and the throngs of glitter-crusted spectators. “Even in the sprints,” came the unanimous reply.

Diggins may have been shy of a podium today – and she knew the reason. “I definitely might have made myself a little tired for the final. I just wanted to do this four times so badly.” Today was “a dream for [her] entire career. Twenty thousand people? It felt like a million people. The enthusiasm and the way that the United States has embraced this sport is so cool.”

Looking to Sunday’s 10k Freestyle, Klæbo was eager for that embrace to be rewarded. “Now everyone will just cross their fingers for Jessie tomorrow – if she can win on home course here tomorrow […] I’ll just cheer for her a little bit extra.”

And beyond tomorrow? “We’re supposed to be back in two years, in part of New York or something. I will for sure note this for FIS – we need to come back here, that’s for sure.”

For Diggins herself, however, it’s this weekend that matters – and this weekend that delivered. “This is so cool, and nothing will ever be like this, ever again. Even the next time we get the World Cup in the United States, which I hope we do, nothing will ever be like this again.”

Today was a celebration long-awaited, and a celebration ecstatically, frantically, desperately received. The 10k Freestyle – and the future of the World Cup in North America – await!

Luke Dykowski is the Nordic Coordinator of the Midwest Collegiate Ski Association. The former Co-President of the University of Minnesota Nordic Ski Club, he attends law school in Washington, D.C.

Read More:

• Klæbo wins the World Cup sprint in Minneapolis
• Jonna Sundling wins the World Cup sprint in Minneapolis

FACTS Minneapolis World Cup Season 2023/2024

• When: Saturday, February 17, to Sunday, February 18, 2024
• Who: Elite national skiers – women and men
• Where: Minneapolis, USA
• What: FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Minneapolis, USA

PROGRAM

Saturday, February 17: Sprint Freestyle (More details can be found here)

• 17:00 CET: Sprint Qualification F, Women
• 17:36 CET: Sprint Qualification F, Men
• 19:30 CET: Sprint Final F, Women
• 19:30 CET: Sprint Final F, Men

Sunday, February 18: 10km Interval Start Freestyle (More details can be found here)

• 17:30 CET: 10km Interval Start F, Men
• 19:45 CET: 10km Interval Start F, Women 

After Minneapolis, in the USA, the World Cup returns to Scandinavia to end the season with weekends in Finland (Lahti), Norway (Oslo and Drammen), and Sweden (Falun).

Read More: World Cup calendar for the 2023/2024 Winter Season