The 2014 U.S. Olympic cross-country skiing team held a 10-year reunion and opened a time capsule from before the Sochi Winter Games in Park City, Utah, last weekend.
Kikkan Randall, a five-time Olympian, organized the event. Jessie Diggins, who with Randall won 2018 Olympic team sprint gold, is the lone member of the 2014 team still actively competing.
Randall and Diggins were joined at the reunion by Erik Bjornsen, Sadie Bjornsen, Holly Brooks, Sophie Caldwell Hamilton, Simi Hamilton, Noah Hoffman, Andy Newell, Ida Sargent and Liz Stephen.
The group of 11 that gathered combined for 30 Olympic appearances and 1,863 individual World Cup starts from 2001 through the 2023-24 season.
“My gratitude for the journey we were all on together and for the role we can still play just skyrockets after weekends like this,” Randall said, according to U.S. Ski and Snowboard. “It was especially meaningful to have so many of our kids running around and to appreciate the new chapters we’re all in while reflecting on so many memories from our ski careers. It surprised many of us just how powerful it felt to all come back together.”
In the time capsule, each athlete wrote a note predicting where they’d be in 2024.
Brooks correctly predicted that Diggins, who was an Olympic rookie in 2014 at age 22, would win the World Cup overall title. Diggins won it in 2021, becoming the first U.S. woman to do so, and again this past season.
Since the Sochi Games, Diggins has also broken the U.S. cross-country skiing records for Olympic medals (one of every color), world championships medals (six) and World Cup wins (21).
“To get this incredible team back together was so special, emotional and powerful for me because I spent so many formative years of my life on the road with them,” Diggins said, according to U.S. Ski and Snowboard. “These athletes are friends, mentors, racing buddies, a shoulder to cry on or a hug to lean into, a hype team to celebrate with and a support system that extends far beyond sport or the race track.”
