Last week, the grass at Theodore Wirth Park was visible, with a manmade snow track curling through the otherwise snowless landscape.

What a difference a week, and a storm, can make.

This weekend’s COOP FIS World Cup ski race will bring the top athletes in cross country skiing to Minneapolis.

The course there got a nice surprise this week — the first major snowfall of the winter — to add to the manmade snow track that is already in place. 

Friday, the trees were caked with snow as skiers from all over the world ran practice runs through the course, getting a feel for the terrain and the snow. 

Among the skiers in the event is Jessie Diggins, the international cross country skiing star from Afton. She’s dreamed of her home state hosting this race for years.

“This is really emotional for me. So if I start crying, just bear with me,” she told the press Friday afternoon. “I mean, the last time I raced here, in the entire state of Minnesota, I was 19 years old. It’s been a long time. And this is something that I’ve wanted to do forever.”

Diggins has had an amazing ski season already. She just won her fifth individual World Cup race last week. She’s tied for the American record for most wins in one season. She’s had the most individual race podiums in one season for an American, with ten. Now she’s coming home to ski in front of her family and friends.

“It’s so special and meaningful to know that I’m just gonna have so much love out there,” she said. “Of course, sometimes that makes you feel like, ‘Oh, I like I have to win, because everyone’s here watching me,’ but I don’t, I just have to go out there and race my heart out. And that’s what I’m gonna do.”

With the athletes come teams of experts who understand ski wax, gear, and conditions in exceedingly exacting detail.

Joel Harrison, the owner of New Moon Ski and Bike Shop in Hayward, Wis., says that detail is key for these athletes.

“Probably you and I go out and skiing on what their selecting criteria is, it’s probably beyond our ability to detect in terms of performance,” he said. “The race performance differences on the clock will be a small percentage of the overall time — we’re talking about decisions that will be made in terms of wax and ski selection, that could be the difference between being first place and being out of the top 10.”

The snow filled park was not something organizers were planning on in the last few weeks. But it was a welcome bonus.

“It’s magic. ‘Someone loves the Loppett,’ is what we said. It’s thrilling to have it come now,” said Claire Wilson, the executive director of the Loppet Foundation, which is hosting the event.

Minneapolis was originally supposed to host the event in 2020, but it was canceled because of COVID-19. Wilson said she’s thrilled to get another chance to host.

“This is a huge deal,” she said. “So we have 180 competitors from 21 different nations. The world’s best skiers are skiing in our public park right now in Minneapolis.”

Harrison had been planning to go to the 2020 event before it was canceled. He’s going to drive into the Twin Cities for this year’s event, which was last held in the U.S. two decades ago.

“Honestly it’s been on our bucket list since March of 2020. When we were gonna go down then and it got scratched and we were terrified it was gonna get scratched again because it’s been such a mild winter,” he said. “I’m really delighted to see it looks like you guys got six inches of snow, so I understand it’ll look like winter down there too maybe.”

That sense of a Minnesota winter couldn’t have come at a better time, for a Loppet that will put Minneapolis in the world skiing spotlight.

The long-awaited races will start Saturday morning and run through Sunday.