The U.S. Led The Way In Equal Distance Cross-Country Ski Racing
by Peggy Shinn
In March 2025 at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, the women raced a brutal 50-kilometer mass start freestyle race. After many rainy days, the over-groomed snow surface broke down, creating “knee-deep mashed potatoes,” described U.S. skier Julia Kern. Many racers crashed and most found themselves on the course’s edge, double-poling through the 50-kilometer (31-mile) suffer fest.
“It felt like a 70k to be honest, and it skied like a 70k,” says Kern, who was the top U.S. finisher in the event.
But none of the 34 starters quit the race. It was the first time that women had raced 50 kilometers at the world championship level, and they had something to prove. By comparison, in less difficult conditions, four men had dropped out of their 50km the previous day.
“It spoke volumes that all of the women wanted to finish and were able to finish despite the really challenging conditions,” adds Kern.
This winter, the women’s 50km will make its debut at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 — one of four changes to bring gender parity to events on the Olympic cross-county skiing program. The women’s 50km replaces the 30km, the race in which Jessie Diggins famously won an Olympic silver medal at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games while battling food poisoning.
The skiathlon and team relay will also be longer for the women, but notably, shorter for the men. And both genders will now race a 10km interval start race, instead of the women racing 10km and the men going out for 15km.
“In track and field, women and men race the same distances, and in swimming too,” points out Kern, who is a FIS athlete representative. “It’s time that skiing does the same thing.”
And while cross-country skiing is a sport with Scandinavian (and Russian) roots, it was U.S. women who led the way in equal distance racing.
The Path To Equal Distance Racing
Women’s cross-country skiing made its Olympic debut at the Olympic Winter Games Oslo 1952 but only in one event: a 10-kilometer race. Four years later, a 3x5km relay was added, then later, a 5km race. Longer distances were not added until the Olympic Winter Games Sarajevo 1984 (a 20km), with the 30km not debuting until 1992. Meanwhile, the men had raced 15, 30, and 50km for decades.
In 2020, Molly Peters — the cross-country ski coach at St. Michael’s College in Vermont and a former NCAA skier — started the Equal Distance Team and, along with other college ski coaches, petitioned U.S. Ski & Snowboard and the NCAA for equal distance domestic races. By the 2021/2022 season, some of the U.S. Super Tour races were equal distance.
“The U.S. paved the way for trialing it out and showing proof of concept,” says Kern.
FIS took note and in May 2022, voted by a 57 percent margin for equal distances on the World Cup tour.
“The main argument to vote for equal distances was that there should not be any question whether women were capable of racing the same distances as men, as they prove that they physically are capable of doing so already,” read a FIS press release.
The argument against? " … the time that women need to cover the same distance as men and the effective television time," stated FIS.
A year later, FIS voted to bring equal distance racing to the world championships, with the new schedule debuting in 2025.
U.S. Women Excelling At All Distances
On the World Cup tour, in the first skiathlon at the new distance, Diggins finished second. The new skiathlon distances are 10-kilometers of classic skiing followed by 10km of freestyle, instead of 7.5km of both techniques for the women. And Diggins is a world champion in the 10km.
In the first 4x7.5km World Cup relay (instead of 5km of each leg), the U.S. women finished on the podium in third.
And in the first 50km on the World Cup — a mass start freestyle at Norway’s Holmenkollen, known as the Super Bowl of cross-country ski racing — Diggins sprinted for the line and finished third, with three teammates all finishing in the top 30.
She had, she said, “been waiting my whole life to race the actual 50k Holmenkollen” rather than the shorter 30km version for the women.
“To be totally frank, I think it’s total crap that the women never got to race this iconic distance,” Diggins said shortly after FIS voted in 2022 to bring equal distances to the World Cup tour.
Most impressive, since the equal distance change, Diggins has won both the overall World Cup title and the distance crown twice.
A top sprinter, Kern “wasn’t sure about [the distance changes] in the beginning,” but she now thinks it makes cross-country skiing easier to watch, with exciting races playing out in every World Cup and world championship race.
It took time to adjust to the distance changes, but now, “it feels completely normal to me,” she adds. “I forget that we used to do different distances.”
As for TV ratings, viewership for women’s races has been higher than men’s races, reports Kern, a fact she learned in a recent FIS meeting.
U.S. Men’s Team Also Excelling
The equal distance changes have also impacted the men’s field, with the skiathlon, relay, and interval start races all shorter now. The men used to race a 30-kilometer skiathlon (15km of each discipline), 4x10km relay, and 15km; now their program is the same as the women’s: 20km skiathlon, 4x7.5km relay, and 10km.
For the U.S. men, it’s been a good change. Both Gus Schumacher and Ben Ogden have finished on the podium in World Cup 10ks, with Schumacher famously winning in front of a home crowd at the Minneapolis World Cup. Both competed successfully at the 10km distance as juniors, with Schumacher winning the 10km world title in 2020, the same year Ogden won the NCAA 10km freestyle crown.
The two men were also on the U.S. relay squad that won at world juniors in 2019 (and finished second the year before).
“Gus and I have definitely talked about how we feel [the distance change] has helped us be much more competitive when we were younger,” says Ogden (both men are 25 years old). “Being competitive that much earlier, you gain that experience and motivation and everything else that comes with good results when you’re younger.”
Ogden also likes that equal distances have made the entire U.S. team more cohesive.
“We race the same races [as the women] and can talk about the same experiences, then learn from each other, ” he says.
Gender Equality Message
At the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, both Ogden and Kern hope the world takes note that men and women are racing the exact same distances on the exact same courses.
“No matter the distance, each race is going to be very competitive,” says Kern. “I hope it shows young girls that they can do anything they want, and women are no less than men.”
“There’s definitely this antiquated deep-seated belief that women do shorter distances in endurance sports,” says Ogden. “In the cross-country ski world, we’re putting that behind us. We’re going to raise young men and young women with the understanding that they are capable of the same things, there’s no reason why a young girl can’t race the same distance as a young man.”