Life after Diggins: the women's Overall Globe is wide open
The women’s Cross-Country World Cup starts 2026/27 without its reigning Overall champion. Jessie Diggins (USA) retired at the end of 2025/26, after winning her third Overall Crystal Globe in a row and her fourth in six seasons. Even she won’t name a successor.
How Diggins left
Diggins announced her retirement before the 2025/26 season began. According to FIS, she then won the Overall and Distance Globes, a third Tour de Ski title and an Olympic bronze in the 10 km Free at Milano Cortina 2026. She clinched the Overall Globe with fifth place in the Lake Placid 10 km Classic, and her last race was the 20 km Mass Start Free there on 22 March. Her four Olympic medals make her the most decorated US cross-country skier in Olympic history.
Asked who would take over, she told FIS: “If Moa Ilar has another season like this one, she can win it. A lot also depends on how much people choose to race, because winning the overall World Cup means being in a bib a lot, collecting points consistently.”
The 2025/26 standings without Diggins
The final women’s Overall standings for 2025/26 (FIS):
- Jessie Diggins (USA) – 2,303 (retired)
- Moa Ilar (SWE) – 1,922
- Maja Dahlqvist (SWE) – 1,623
- Jonna Sundling (SWE) – 1,422
- Heidi Weng (NOR) – 1,324
- Linn Svahn (SWE) – 1,300
- Nadine Fähndrich (SUI) – 1,135
- Jasmi Joensuu (FIN) – 1,079
- Teresa Stadlober (AUT) – 1,063
- Johanna Matintalo (FIN) – 1,047
The specialist globes tell more of the story. Dahlqvist won the Sprint standings with 814 points, ahead of Fähndrich (793, 3rd) and Sundling (750, 4th) among the leading contenders. In the Distance standings Diggins finished first, followed by Ilar (1,087) and Weng (1,048). FIS noted that apart from Diggins, a dozen other women won World Cup races during the season.
Analysis: who can win the Overall Globe
This section is analysis, not reporting. Ranking contenders is our editorial judgement, not a prediction backed by a model.
Moa Ilar is the logical starting point. She finished second overall and second in the Distance standings, and was eighth in the Sprint standings with 628 points. That is the profile of an Overall winner: strong on distance and solid enough in sprints to keep scoring. Last season’s gap of 381 points to Diggins disappears with Diggins gone, but it also shows how much ground Ilar would need to find to win the way Diggins did.
Sweden has numbers, which cuts both ways. Four of the top six were Swedish. That means several contenders, but they will take points off each other all winter, and Sweden’s own World Championships in Falun may pull their focus towards February.
Sprinters have a path, but a narrow one. Dahlqvist won the Sprint Globe but finished only tenth in the Distance standings (647). To win the Overall she would need to close a large distance deficit. With sprints at almost every stop, though, a top sprinter who also scores steadily in distance races can stay in the fight longer than you might expect.
Heidi Weng is the distance specialist to watch. She was third in the Distance standings with 1,048 points but scored almost nothing in sprints. The Holmenkollen 50 km Classic and the Tour de Ski’s Final Climb suit her, but the Overall format rewards all-rounders.
Consistency could beat brilliance. Diggins’ own point is the most useful one: the Overall Globe goes to whoever races often and keeps scoring. With Falun in the middle of the season, the winner may simply be the contender who skips the fewest World Cup weekends.
The Alpine nations have a podium chance. Switzerland’s Nadine Fähndrich (7th), Austria’s Teresa Stadlober (9th) and Switzerland’s Anja Weber (12th) all finished in or close to the top ten. None is an obvious Overall winner on last season’s numbers, but in an open year a podium is realistic, which matters to readers in Switzerland, Austria and Germany. Germany’s highest-ranked woman in the final standings was Helen Hoffmann in 19th.
The Tour de Ski as a turning point
The 2026/27 Tour de Ski (1–10 January) runs through Les Rousses, Oberstdorf and Val di Fiemme. Its eight stages award a lot of World Cup points in ten days. In a season without a dominant favourite, the Tour is where an Overall leader is most likely to open a real gap. Diggins won it last year. So the women’s Tour has no defending champion either.
What Ruka will and won’t tell us
Ruka opens the season with a 10 km Classic, a Classic Sprint and a 20 km Free mass start. A good weekend there gives a contender an early lead, but around 30 World Cup races follow. We’ll publish a full Ruka preview the week of the race.