Olympian Nearly Killed Rolling-Skiing in Minnesota
She was a gold medalist at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games but she says an angry driver nearly killed her back home here in Minnesota.
Jessie Diggins is, of course, a Minnesota native who won a dramatic gold medal in women's cross-country. She still lives, at least some of the year, at her home in Afton (Afton is right on the St. Croix River, about an hour and a half northeast of Rochester-- I love to head to Afton Alps skiing in the winter). And that's where this scary event happened.
According to her blog, Jessie was out roller-skiing on rural road not far from her house when she and her high school coach encountered an angry driver in an SUV who nearly hit them and ran them off the road.
When they moved over, the driver blocked them and finally buzzed by so close Diggins was "rocked sideways from the wind." She said had they been a little farther down the road, over a hill, they might not have seen the SUV and could have been hit-- or killed. She was able to write down the license plate number and called police, who found the driver and let them know what they did was wrong-- and illegal. (You have to give a pedestrian or cyclist at least 3 feet of space in Minnesota.)
Can you imagine that?!? I just don't get what's wrong with some people. It's not like she and her friend were blocking traffic-- not that THAT would excuse this driver's behavior incredibly dangerous anyway-- so what's with the hostile behavior?!? Talk about road rage!
For her part, Diggins said in this Star Tribue story she's glad police took the matter seriously, and that man had apologized. Still, though, it's a scary incident for anyone to have to go through. Luckily, nobody was hurt!
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