Proffit's Unlikely Path to U.S. Alpine Ski Team Featured in St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Land Rover U.S. Alpine Ski Team Development athlete Ainsley Proffit was recently featured in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's "Best of St. Louis" series, featuring the region's top performers in Olympic and recreational sports in an article entitled, "From St. Charles to U.S. ski team: Ainsley Proffit's unlikely quest to be queen of the hill."
Ainsley, who has partnered with teammate and Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin the last two years as the faces of U.S. Ski & Snowboard's St. Louis fundraising event at Ron Kruszewski's home, is a St. Louis, Mo. native who has taken a more unlikely path to the U.S. Ski Team. Hailing from a small ski area called Hidden Valley Ski Resort in Wildwood, Mo., with a modest 470-foot vertical drop, Ainsley vividly remembers the first time she raced in Colorado.
“I remember my first year racing out in Colorado,” Proffit recalled. “I came out for Colorado’s end-of-season championships, where all best racers who were 11 or 12 years old all competed, all the best kids in the state. In the first race of the series I got second and one of the moms asked my mom where I was training. Did I go to Austria or Switzerland for special coaching? How was I so good from Missouri? It was me skiing at Hidden Valley every day.”
This spring, Ainsley and her family made headlines when they turned their small children's clothing company into a mask-making business when COVID-19 hit. She recently returned to snow at Official Training Site Copper Mountain, Colo., for a successful camp.