Kikkan Randall was named after Alpine skiing champion Kiki Cutter. She is the niece of Olympic cross-country skiers Betsy and Chris Haines. So perhaps it was not much of a surprise that Randall started skiing at age 1 and later achieved what no American woman had done before.
Randall was 19 when she made her Olympic debut at the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Winter Games, finishing 44th in the individual sprint. At Torino 2006, she finished ninth. She was sixth at Vancouver 2010. She failed to advance past the qualifying round at Sochi 2014, but in 2018 – no longer the newcomer and now a veteran – she teamed with Jessie Diggins (pictured above, Randall on right) to win the gold medal in the sprint relay, the first American cross-country skiers to win Olympic gold.
