Jessie Diggins will race the 2027 American Birkebeiner

Jessie Diggins will be on a start line again this winter. The American, who retired from World Cup racing at the end of last season, will ski the 53rd American Birkebeiner in Wisconsin on Saturday 27 February 2027. She announced it in a social media video on Friday, and the race organizers confirmed it.

“I have my next race on the calendar, and it is none other than the American Birkebeiner,” Diggins said in the video, as quoted by the organizers. Growing up in Minnesota, she said, Birkie weekend was “essentially a national holiday.”

Diggins won the Birkie in 2024. The race, on the Birkebeiner Trail between Cable and Hayward, is North America’s largest cross-country ski race, held as a 50 km skate and a 53 km classic event. The organizers haven’t said which one she will ski.

She will also be at the start of the Kortelopet, the Birkie’s half-distance race, on Friday 26 February. She raced the Korte as a young skier and has called it the place where she learned to race.

The date falls in the middle of the World Championships in Falun (24 February to 7 March), so the most decorated cross-country skier in U.S. history will be racing in Wisconsin while the U.S. team races for medals in Sweden. We looked at what her retirement means for the women’s World Cup in our analysis of the Overall Globe race.

Correction, 1 November 2026: An earlier version gave 22 February as the opening date of the World Championships in Falun. According to the official programme they open on 24 February.