UPDATE, Feb. 21 — It finally happened. Afton native and Stillwater High School graduate (class of 2010) Jessie Diggins helped end the United States' 42-year Olympic cross-country medal drought by winning gold in the women's team sprint Wednesday in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Before Wednesday, no American woman had medaled in cross-country skiing at the Olympics, and Bill Koch was the only American to have ever medaled in the sport (back in 1976). While most of the nation was asleep, Diggins, 26, and her American teammate Kikkan Randall 35, became:

The nation's first cross-country skiers to win gold.

The first U.S. women cross-country skiers to ever medal at the Olympics. Sweden won silver and Norway captured bronze in the sprint event.

Photo by Lars Baron/Getty Images In the team sprint, two teammates "pass the relay" to each other three times over the course of 15 kilometers. In the final lap, Diggins skied by Norway's Marit Bjoergen (the winningest Winter Olympian of all time with 14 medals) and darted narrowly ahead of Sweden's Stina Nilsson just before crossing the finish line. Diggins fell to the ground and screamed with joy; Randall jumped on her and joined in on the cheering.

"It was this race in particular that really motivated me to go for one more Olympics, and really pushed me through this comeback after having my son," she told NBC Today. "It's been so fun. This family on this team has been helping me raise Breck. It's just so cool. I hope it gives a lot of inspiration to all the moms out there that you can come back to being active and physical and stronger than you've ever been."

"It was so, so cool to do this as a team," Diggins told the network. "There are so many strong women on this team that could have also been skiing these legs and we were just honored to represent Team USA out there."



Diggins' final race at the 2018 Winter Olympics is the 30-kilometer mass start classic taking place Sunday at 12:15 a.m. central. Global Warming Is Hurting My Sport: Olympic Skier Jessie Diggins

