Every four years, as the best winter athletes in the world descend upon some snowy and scenic locale to compete for gold at the Winter Olympics, US audiences tune in by the millions to witness the exhilarating beauty of figure skating and the death-defying velocity of alpine skiing. But cross-country skiing, which lacks the obvious appeal and star power of those marquee events, rarely captures the attention of the American public, even during the Games.

That could change soon.

Team USA has finally found its crossover cross-country star in Jessie Diggins, the bubbly and affable 26-year-old who is aiming to become the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in the sport.

And she wants to convince everyone to give cross-country skiing a chance.

“This sport has evolved quite a lot,” Diggins tells the Guardian. “It’s more dynamic and exciting than people think. It’s not just people disappearing into the woods and coming back a few hours later.”

She describes it as a “thinking game” with the added thrill of crashes and contact between competitors. If that doesn’t entice viewers, then Diggins’ enthusiasm certainly will.

After making her Olympic debut four years ago in Sochi, where her best individual result was an eighth-place finish in the skiathlon, Diggins emerged as a contender in a sport traditionally dominated by athletes from Scandinavia. She’s only now beginning to hit her stride, right on schedule in a sport where athletes tend to peak in their late 20s and early 30s.

“It is a game of endurance and patience,” she explains. “If you’re willing to stick it out and put in the work for 10 years, you’re going to be the fittest athlete on the planet. It just takes a lot of grit.”

Even the fittest cross-country skiers aren’t immune to the suffering the sport can inflict, which is evident in the battlefield-like scene of collapsed bodies at the finish of any race. Yet if Diggins dreads the agony that awaits, her face doesn’t betray it at the start line.

“I have this huge smile, ear to ear, because how can you not smile? I mean, this is so much fun.”

Diggins has won a US-record four world championships medals, including a pair of silvers last year. Photograph: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

Diggins traces her love of the sport back to her parents Clay and Deb, who first took her skiing when she was still in diapers.

“Before I could even walk, I was in my dad’s backpack while my parents went skiing on the trails every weekend,” she says. “I’d be pulling on my dad’s hair and yelling at him to mush like he was a sled dog.”

She was raised in the scenic small town of Afton, Minnesota, located just outside of St Paul near the Afton Alps, the largest ski and snowboard resort in the region. Cross-country skiing is a popular pastime there, even in the warmer months, when Diggins and others train on the roads using rollerskis (skis with wheels on the bottom). The same hometown that nurtured her passion for the sport also rallied around her to launch her career, hosting fundraisers to make Diggins’ dream possible.

“Cross-country skiers don’t really make a lot of money,” she says. “You’re not in it for the money. Definitely not in it for the glory. You’re in it because you love the sport.”

You’re not in it for the money. Definitely not in it for the glory. You’re in it because you love the sport. Jessie Diggins

Diggins never loses sight of this love. It’s why she wears streaks of glitter on her cheeks during races, which she’s been doing since high school.

“Glitter for me is this promise to myself that I got into this sport because I love it,” she says. “It’s a reminder of the little girl who just wants to go super-speed.”

Her spirit is infectious. When she’s not spreading sparkles among her teammates, who call her the Glitter Fairy, she’s choreographing dance routines and making music videos with her squad. Diggins maintains that she’s “not a great dancer”, but her hobby of learning hip-hop routines from YouTube tutorials helps fill the downtime during the season. And she has a willing ensemble of performers in her fellow cross-country skiers.

Diggins has gotten more ambitious during this Olympic year, hinting at a video she’s spearheading that will include US athletes from across the many ski and snowboard disciplines doing a routine that she choreographed. But dancing won’t necessarily be on the docket for Diggins during the Games. Instead, she’ll be looking to conserve energy, which she says she failed to do four years ago.

“The first time around, I didn’t really blink the entire time,” she said. “The lights are brighter, it’s a bigger stage. Suddenly the world is watching. I lost a lot of energy in just trying to figure out how to manage that.”

Diggins says she entered the Sochi Games “without any real pressure or expectations,” but that is no longer the case. It’s been 42 years since Bill Koch became the first and only American to win an Olympic cross-country medal with his silver in Innsbruck, Austria. Diggins has a chance to end that drought in South Korea. Along with being a medal contender with her US teammates in the relay and the team sprint, she also solidified her status as a favorite in the 10km freestyle by winning that event at the last World Cup stop before the Games. She already got off to a promising start in Pyeongchang, where she hinted at her podium potential by finishing fifth in the skiathlon and sixth in the classic sprint, neither of which is her specialty.

Should she triumph in Pyeongchang, the US may finally fall in love with cross-country skiing – and with Diggins, the glittering, grinning, and gold medal-winning star that America needs.