The next generation of moguls athletes had the opportunity to train with national team members in a jam-packed 10-day Young Gun camp from July 15 - 25. 

The annual Young Gun program is an invitation-only experience extended to the top-three moguls skiers from each age group from junior nationals per gender. This year included four days of training in Park City and four days of on-snow training at U.S. Ski & Snowboard official training partner Timberline Lodge & Ski Area - a first for the almost-decade old talent ID camp. 

The Young Gun program creates a development pipeline for up and coming moguls talent. Participation grants access to national team coaching and facilities, and mimics on a small scale what being a national team member is like. U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s Head Moguls Coach, Matt Gnoza estimates that about 80% of the current national team had all been Young Guns at one point or another. “We use this program to see what’s coming up the pipeline,” Gnoza explained. “These kids have placed themselves on the path to the national team, so the overall concept is to show these young athletes a day in the life.”

“I remember my first time being a Young Gun and I recall being a little nervous because I had never trained anywhere else but my home mountain,” remembered Alex Lewis (Carlisle, Mass.). “Being a Young Gun was important to me because it was exciting getting to work with some of the U.S. Team coaches at the time. It was also fun to meet athletes from other mountains and divisions. The Young Guns program gave me an insight into what the future looked like. Now being on the other side as a member of the U.S. Moguls Team, watching the young guns train alongside us, is cool because you can see how hard they are working and what they are working on in that part of their career.”

The Young Guns arrived in Park City on July 15 for the first half of the camp which mimicked a block of national team water ramp training. Morning sessions had the group up and at it bright and early with a 7 a.m. arrival to the Utah Olympic Park (UOP) for warm-ups, followed by their first water ramp session of the day. Lunch and trampoline training served as the group’s break before heading back to the ramps for an afternoon jump session. In total, the Young Guns participated in seven water ramp sessions and four trampoline sessions.

The group also spent time with USOPC Senior Sport Psychologist, Alex Cohen, who took them through a Performance Readiness Planning workshop. Performance readiness planning addresses four main areas to facilitate consistency in performance excellence: preparation, resilience, intensity, and focus. Through setting goals, identifying potential obstacles to those goals and then defining behaviors that will help overcome obstacles, the Young Guns gained valuable tools to be successful in their training and competition aspirations.

U.S. Ski & Snowboard World Cup Coach Joe Discoe took the lead for the Park City portion of the camp, working with the Young Guns in concert with his national team duties. He was assisted by Bryon Wilson, Wasatch Freestyle head moguls coach. “The young guns program is a great place for focused young athletes to come together and feed off of each other’s energy,” said Wilson. “The atmosphere at Young Guns is one full of focused passion, education, and fun, and every Young Gun I coached was hungry and eager to learn, which made it a pleasure for me to coach. The Young Guns program is also a great place for the athletes to learn where they stand physically and gives them a good understanding of where there might be some weaknesses. Overall I feel like all of the young guns left better than when they started, which in my opinion is a success.”

“What was cool about this camp is that the Young Guns were training alongside the U.S.  Ski Team,” said Discoe. “They weren’t set off to their own space. They trained alongside Jaelin and Brad, for example, up in Park City. The Young Guns ramped with them at the same time, which really pumped up the kids. It was really cool to see them get excited to be able to ski with some of their idols. They got to see how [Brad and Jaelin] work and how they work with their coaches. I thought that was very beneficial.”

On July 20 the group changed venues and flew out to Timberline Lodge & Ski Area for a four-day block of on-snow training alongside an on-going national team training camp. The Young Guns experienced what team travel is all about: being flexible about flights and car rentals, meal planning and taking care of oneself while on the road. With the help of national team staff, the group got a taste of what their future on the road could look like. 

The four-day block mimicked the national team athletes schedule. The Young Guns arrived at Timberline Lodge around 8:30 a.m. for warm-ups for a 9 a.m. lift load up to the snowfield. Both newly hired U.S. Ski & Snowboard World Cup coaches Discoe and Riley Campbell traded days focusing on the Young Guns, leading them through group drills in the flats for a few runs before making their way over to the jump site. The day ended with a few rounds through the moguls lines just as the national team was wrapping their day. This provided an opportunity for a few fun duals between national team members and Young Guns, as well as a chance for the young athletes to get feedback from Gnoza. 

Off hill the group stayed busy packing in typical Mount Hood experiences: swimming in Trillium Lake, rope swinging in Hood River and of course, huckleberry shakes. “The goal of Young Guns is not only to help create a funnel in that pipeline to get onto to U.S. Team but also to create that relationship with these young athletes,” said Discoe. “They are really good and really talented and have a real possibility of being on the team in the near future. It’s cool because these kids come from all over the country and get to hang out and meet each other. They get to create bonds among this more elite-level group, which will hopefully transfer in if they make the team. Because it’s more than likely some of these kids will be their teammates.”

Before arriving, each Young Gun had to submit their strengths and weaknesses, challenges, and goals for camp as well as their careers. “We want them to list their top three goals, what they want to get out of this camp, what their weaknesses are that they need to work on,” explained Discoe. “We then correlate their training towards that.” 

Taking the Young Guns on-snow was new this year, and well-received by both the athletes and the coaching staff. “Alli Macuga softened up her skiing quite a bit, which was one of the main goals she wanted to work on,” reflected Discoe. “Zoe Dwinelle threw her first fulls on snow ever. That was one of her major goals. A lot of them are trying new tricks with different grabs and bringing new skills to snow. They did well here.”

“My favorite part about the camp was being able to train with the U.S. Team coaches and use the facilities that they're able to use,” said Dane Alexander (Wasatch Freestyle). “I got to hang out with a good group of kids. I learned a lot more about how to take care of my body and stretch before and after training.” 

Riding the success of this year’s innovations of having the Young Guns training alongside the national team, as well as the on-snow component, has Discoe optimistic about future improvements to the program. “I would like to see Young Guns on a grander scale. Whether the camp is elongated to include two blocks of on-snow training or provide multiple, shorter camps. The on-snow portion was really good but it’s also short. The athletes would get more focused training if we did two on-snow blocks. Or we could bring them in, give them back to their coaches and get them pumped up, and then bring them back for something else.”

“At this year’s young guns I did my first full-on snow,” said Zoe Dwinelle (Park City Ski & Snowboard). “The coaches and athletes were the ones that helped me do it - they were so supportive and encouraging. When I did my first full I felt so happy that I had done something new, and something that will improve my skiing later. Overall this Young Guns camp was probably the best on-snow camp I’ve been to. I learned new tricks, met new people, and got to see what it felt like to be on the U.S. moguls team.”

This year’s Young Guns:
Jackson Harvey, Winter Park Competition Center
Dane Alexander, Wasatch Freestyle
Jackson True, Team Summit
Megan Ciaglo, Killington Mountain School
Sam Gottesfeld,  Winter Park Competition Center
Zoe Dwinell, Park City Ski & Snowboard
Alli Macuga, Park City Ski & Snowboard
Vivian “Reese” Chapdelaine, Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club
Kasey Hogg, Wasatch Freestyle
Luke Weiler, Bristol Mountain Freestyle

The newest American aerials site, Mikey’s Jump at Bristol Mountain’s High Point Terrain Park, will serve as the host site for the next two U.S. Aerials Freestyle National Championships, with events confirmed 2020 and 2021.

“We are thrilled that Bristol Mountain has built this new venue to host training for our nation’s elite athletes and conduct national and international competition,” said Jeremy Forster, U.S. Ski & Snowboard Director of Freestyle/Freeski/Snowboard. “We look forward to welcoming the United States’ aerials community for the next two years at our national championship event in New York.”

The event will welcome the United States’ top athletes to compete for the National Championship.  Spanning four days, including training, the championships will culminate with finals on Saturday, March 14, 2020, and Saturday, March 13, 2021, respectively, providing spectators ample opportunity to cheer as athletes soar to heights of more than 50 feet above the Bristol Valley. In freestyle aerials, athletes complete a series of acrobatic maneuvers in the air after skiing off jumps that range in height from seven feet, six-inches, to 13-feet, six-inches.  Athletes are judged based on their amplitude (height and distance in the air), form (style and execution), and landing.

“Bristol Mountain is excited to be hosting the 2020 and 2021 U.S. Aerials Freestyle Championships,” said Bristol Mountain Vice President Steven Fuller. “When we began construction of Mikey’s Jump last year, we envisioned the site being utilized for training and competition. Hosting an event of this prestige adds a lot of excitement to the sport and the Rochester Community. We are thrilled that not only will be hosting the national championships but will also have the opportunity to watch our hometown athletes compete. We can’t wait to cheer them on!”

Last year’s champions U.S. Aerial Champions were Bristol Mountain’s own Chris Lillis (Pittsford, N.Y.) and Winter Vinecki (Gaylord, Mich.). Chris’s brother Jonathon Lillis finished second. The results of the 2020 and 2021 Championships will be used for the selection of the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team, and to award start positions for World Cup competition.

Hailing from Texas, it seemed unlikely that Michael Bingaman (“Bing” as we call him) – Athletic Development Coach for the men’s U.S. Alpine Ski Team – would find himself on the mountain, but with a Master of Science in Kinesiology/Sports Physiology, a background in Olympic weightlifting, and an open mind and excitement to take on new sports and events, it makes complete sense. Bingaman introduces a new U.S. Ski & Snowboard content series called the “Coach’s Column” that will feature staff members from strength and conditioning coaches to physios, on-hill coaches and beyond. From creating a successful team culture off the hill that translates to on-hill success to female coaches with a goal to inspire and nurture the next generation of rippers (and much more), we’ll bring you stories from the ground through the lens of our coaching staff who know our athletes best.

These staff members spend countless hours traveling from point A to point B in the winter with athletes, eating dinner as a team, training in the gym and on the mountain, often celebrating Christmas away from home and instead with their athletes and fellow staff members, and the list goes on. They’re more than a team…they’re a second family – a winter family. It’s not easy to be away from home. The days are long and the load is heavy, and it’s sometimes thankless work for these behind-the-scenes heroes. We hope that by sharing their stories, in their words, it will give you all some understanding and appreciation for what it takes to create an environment in which our athletes can thrive.

Enjoy the journey, 

Megan Harrod
Alpine Marketing Communications Manager

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“Oh, so you just get people strong,” they say. As an Athletic Development coach, I’ve had my entire job summed up with those words more often than I can count; though quite innocently, I might add. When I’m meeting someone in passing, I’ll usually just laugh and reply, “Yeah, that’s about right.” But the truth is that preparing an athlete, especially an athlete who is set to perform at the highest level of sport, goes far beyond this simple summary.

Those of us who share a similar role, but with different teams here at U.S. Ski & Snowboard recently and very deliberately changed our job titles from “Strength & Conditioning Coach” to “Athletic Development Coach”. This was done for a number of reasons, but the most important reason is that we do far more than simply “strengthen” and “condition” athletes. Words paint pictures, and “Strength & Conditioning Coach” – often shortened to “Strength Coach” – is far too simplistic of an image to explain what we’re actually up to. At our core, we in the High Performance Department seek to “develop competent, confident, and connected athletes and teams of strong character that are physically and mentally prepared to be the best in the world in skiing and snowboarding.” With all of that in mind, I’ll be quite frank: Getting athletes strong is both incredibly simple and often the least of my concerns.

The first and most important of these is love. I do what I do because I care, and I care A LOT. In a presentation I give to my athletes to kick off our prep-period each year, I make a point to state this very clearly to my guys: “I care about you as a person more than I care about you as an athlete.”

If everything I did as a coach was built upon three pillars, those three pillars would be love, excellence, and fun. The first and most important of these is love. I do what I do because I care, and I care A LOT. In a presentation I give to my athletes to kick off our prep-period each year, I make a point to state this very clearly to my guys: “I care about you as a person more than I care about you as an athlete.” Though a goal of mine is to prepare athletes for success at the highest level, their performances do not, in any way, affect how I feel about them as people. And it’s with this understanding that our training begins.

In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow published a book titled, “A Theory of Human Motivation,” from which his famous “Hierarchy of Needs” was born. His model is important because the peak of his pyramid is topped with “Self-Actualization,” or the “desire to become the most that one can be.” Those working and competing in elite sport identify with this desire at a visceral level. The base of his pyramid is formed by the meeting of our physiological needs followed by our safety needs. Atop that, in the middle, we find “love and belonging”, which supports “esteem”. Though Maslow points out that each of these levels doesn’t need to be filled to 100% before the next level can be built, the point of this all is that the journey to self-actualization has something of a sequential road map. To focus solely on peaking an athlete’s physical performance while neglecting to attend to his inherent need for belonging, for recognition, for connection, for family, is akin to constructing a mansion out of sticks – once the storms come (and they surely will), the walls come crumbling down.

Let’s bring it home: athletes on teams who don’t feel like they belong, who don’t feel cared for or connected, who don’t feel supported, are fighting an uphill battle that is rarely won. And to step back even more, the same is true for any of us – whether that be at our jobs, in our home life, or with our friend groups. The needs Maslow describes are innate in us all, regardless of profession; elite athlete or not. My pitch today, if I only get one, is this: See the person first.

Once you get to know an athlete as a person, once you discover their background, their motivations, their fears and hopes and dreams, you can truly begin to build something special. A team should be a family, individual sport or not, and the more a group resembles a family, the better things will be. What does it mean to be a family? It means you’re together through thick and thin. It means you look after one another. It means you care because you choose to care, day after day. It means you work together towards a common goal. It means you laugh together, and you’ll cry together. You’ll celebrate together, and you’ll work through difficult times together. When done well, this familial feel fills each of us to the brim in the categories of “Love and Belonging” as well as “Esteem”, the middle sections of Maslow’s hierarchy. It’s only then that self-actualization can be fully supported and reached.

My first real taste of this was with my 2017-2018 NorAm/Europa Cup team, more commonly known as The Shiver. (The “#MeetTheShiver” hashtag on Instagram will tell you all you need to know about this special crew.) This was a team of men who truly cared for one another, and not surprisingly then succeeded together. The success this group had and the successes that followed for the up-and-coming men’s alpine athletes speak for themselves – in their 2019 World Juniors showing, they were the best men’s team in the world. Did every single individual win a medal? No. But, every single individual played a role in every medal that was won.

From sweating together through hundreds of hours of sessions in the gym to pushing one another on the hill to making one another laugh and simply caring when it mattered most, this team is ALL-IN together. Everyone belongs, everyone has a role, everyone contributes. The group’s success isn’t some unexplainable mystery. They were prepared, physically and psychologically, and they executed. And the entire time, they were supported, loved, challenged, and held accountable.
 

Success in this sport hinges on a lot coming together at once, and so many of those things are out of our control. On the flip side, so many things are within our control. While we can’t control the weather or the snow conditions, we CAN prepare the athlete. We can obviously get them stronger and fitter, we can tweak their setup and tune their skis, we can adjust their line and their tactics. But, as we consider all of that, we must also see the person first. We should shape cultures, set environments, build teams, encourage unity, and teach resilience. We should listen, laugh, nurture, and care. We should work through defeats, learn from both losses and wins, and grow better together. We should look after one another, challenge one another to be more, and hold one another accountable.

To be a small part of the support staff at U.S. Ski & Snowboard means we should do everything in our power to see the athlete kick out of the start as prepared, confident, and ready – physically, mentally, and emotionally – as is humanly possible. And THAT, in short, is what I, as well as the rest of the support staff, actually work to do. Like I said – simply getting athletes stronger is the easy part.

Sixty of the best U16 cross country athletes from around the country gathered at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minn., recently to push to their athletic limits and beyond.

“I was blown away by the level of training, skiing, enthusiasm, and professionalism that I witnessed at the National U16 Cross Country Camp in Duluth,” noted former U.S. Cross Country Team member and two-time Olympian Ida Sargent, who participated in the camp as part of the Retired Stars Mentorship Program. 

“These kids showed up at each session and activity excited and ready to go,” she added. “The super sweaty pain faces at the top of the uphill time trial, the serious amount of road rash during the skate sprint simulation, the controlled pace during the distance workouts, and the very insightful and inquisitive questions which I was asked constantly throughout the week were all signs that these kids were taking risks, pushing the limits, and improving together.”

In addition to Sargent, athletes were led by a number of college, association, and U.S. Ski & Snowboard coaches through a variety of workouts at the camp. 

Vermont’s Killington Resort, the largest ski and snowboard destination in Eastern North America and a POWDR resort, announced today that tickets for the 2019 HomeLight Killington Cup will be available for purchase starting Wednesday, August 21 at 9:00 a.m. ET at killington.com. Taking place November 29-December 1, the World Cup will once again bring the women’s giant slalom and slalom races to Vermont and is expected to attract U.S. Ski Team superstar Mikaela Shiffrin to compete against the best women’s technical alpine skiers in the world.

“Killington and the entire community is eager to welcome back world class alpine skiing for the fourth consecutive year. We’ll once again offer free-access viewing areas so the thrill of alpine ski racing can be enjoyed by all and everyone can be inspired by these amazing athletes, especially the next generation of alpine ski racers,” says Mike Solimano, president and general manager of Killington Resort and Pico Mountain. “Over the years, the community’s support has helped us showcase Killington and the state of Vermont to the international ski audience, and we look forward to displaying ‘winter in its original state’ once again on Thanksgiving Weekend.”

Killington Resort will host free concerts throughout the event, in addition to an already action-packed, fun-filled weekend. Other entertainment includes the World Cup Festival Village, fireworks, athlete parades and the Friday night bib draw featuring top athletes.

“It’s exciting to welcome the best women ski racers in the world back to Killington, especially coming off of such an incredible winter season. It was only two months ago, on June 2, that Killington’s ski season ended,” says Herwig Demschar, chair of Killington’s World Cup Local Organizing Committee. “Now, were talking about snowmaking as the resort prepares the Superstar course for another World Cup. Guests joining us for the World Cup weekend will experience Killington as they never have before with world-class racing, live music, autograph signings, fireworks and more – creating a weekend in the mountains not to be missed.”  

New this year, tickets for the Saturday and Sunday events can be purchased as a weekend package. Ticket offerings for 2019 Killington Cup include:

General Admission - Free

In addition to the ticket offers, there will be plenty of free access viewing space for all fans to enjoy. The free area provides standing room access near the base of the Superstar trail and along the run with two jumbo screens for viewing the full race course.

VIP Tickets - $550 Sat/ $500 Sun/ $1,000 Weekend

VIP tickets are available at kwcfgivesback.org in partnership with the Killington World Cup Foundation, which supports athlete hospitality and provides grants to bolster winter sports infrastructure and access to winter sports throughout the 

region. Last year, the KWCF raised $250,000 in grants that they distributed to 21 winter sports programs in seven different states.

4241’ Finish Pavilion - $175 Sat/$150 Sun/$300 Weekend

The 4241’ Finish Pavilion, located on skier’s left of Superstar (below the KMS bag jump), provides, a semi-heated tent and premium viewing area featuring a continental breakfast and lunch buffet with soft drinks and hot beverages catered by the Peak Lodge. A beer and wine cash bar will be available.

Premier Grandstand – $100 Sat/$90 Sun/ $175 Weekend

The Premier Grandstand offers guaranteed access to the highest five rows of the grandstands at the base of Superstar trail, providing one of the best vantage points of the course. Premier Grandstand tickets are limited in quantity and 100% of the proceeds benefit the Killington World Cup Foundation.

Grandstand – $45 Sat/ $40 Sun/$75 Weekend

Ticketed Grandstands are located at the base of the Superstar trail, adjacent to the race course, and are general admission for all rows except the top five. The grandstand provides an elevated view of the race course, along with two jumbo screens broadcasting top-to-bottom race coverage. Limited accessible seating access is available in the front row of the grandstand.

Free parking and shuttles will be available around Killington Resort, however attendees can purchase a preferred parking passes in the Vale parking lots for $25. Preferred parking passes can be purchased when tickets go on sale at killington.com.

For additional information about Killington Resort and the 2019 Audi FIS Women’s Ski World Cup, please visit killington.com/worldcup.

Thinking outside of the box is how competitive freestyle skiing came about and at their second camp training at official partner Timberline Lodge & Ski Area, U.S. Freestyle Ski Team Head Moguls Coach Matt Gnoza had his athletes training outside of the now established “moguls box.” The July 15-28 Hood 2 Camp was all about interleaving training - the principle of mixing, or interleaving, practice on related skills together. 

As per usual, athletes rose early and arrived at Timberline Lodge for 7 a.m. warm-ups for an 8 a.m. lift load. Summer temperatures kept the snow nice and pliable for the morning, and athletes were able to take full advantage at their jump site and moguls lines until about 1 p.m. when the Monarch butterfly migration appeared and the snow became soft. 

But instead of block practice, such as skiing the same moguls lines an established number of times, Gnoza and his team randomized the athletes’ approach to training through variation and variability. “Variation is the approach the athlete takes and variability is the environment we create,” explained Sport Development Coach Josh Bullock. “The skill becomes much more sticky when the environment or tactic changes each time.”

At the jump site, directions like “surprise me” or “change it up, do something fun” had athletes on their toes. “The moguls mentality in the past has been ‘you do that back lay and once you look absolutely perfect, then you can do the back full,’” explained Gnoza. “‘Then once that looks perfect, maybe we’ll do a cork 7.’ But by diversifying the jumps, [the athletes are] getting to it faster. We’ve seen [a higher degree of difficulty] because we’re not ‘oh you can’t go to the higher DD until you do that one perfect.’”

When athletes moved to the moguls runs challenges like “give me two random airs” or “ski the left line, then move to the middle line” created motor problems athletes had to solve, and with gusto. The positive energy was palpable on the hill and the team was eager for whatever unknown variability would be thrown their way. 

“For moguls, it’s thinking outside the box,” said Gnoza. “Big-time!” Bullock interjected. “When we review the day’s video, we go ‘Oh wow we actually like the guy that looked a little different rather than the guy who looked like a robot,’” Gnoza finished. 

“[This approach] creates deep learning for when it counts because the goal of training is not to have pretty training,” said USOPC Senior Sport Psychologist Alex Cohen. “The goal of training is to prepare athletes to perform under pressure. It simulates performance and requires them to learn how to adapt. It requires patience on the part of athletes and coaches because it may be a little messier at times in training.”

Athletes have responded well to the new training techniques, which the moguls staff started implementing gradually about a year ago. This summer it is much more thought out, strategic process. “Based on their reflections, I’d say generally speaking [the athletes] have enjoyed the training,” said Bullock. “There’s a lot of ‘fun,’ ‘enjoyable,’ ‘progressive,’ those types of words being thrown around. It’s the variation that keeps you from getting stagnant, burnt out.”

“In Hood 2 my main focus was to bring my cork 720 back to snow after an ankle injury back in November,” said Hannah Soar (Somers, Conn.). “Once I got comfortable again, I started switching up my jumps between corks, fulls, and back tucks in order to vary my training. By switching up which trick I did each jump I was able to vary my training allowing me to better simulate a competition setting. Variant training helps me recognize what aspects of a jump I need to focus on the most. Since I am switching up my jump every time it’s difficult sometimes to always remember exactly what to think about for each jump every time. This is a good way for athletes to see what comes naturally and what needs more attention.”

Gnoza stresses that this isn’t a complete overhaul in the moguls’ team’s training approach, but a steady blend of best practices and new approaches, learned from sport science and acquired institutional knowledge. Instead of getting back into the groove in July and bringing a new trick to snow in October, athletes are performing them now. “They get to those tricks and they’re fresh,” said Bullock. “Which also reduces the risk of a catastrophic acute injury.” Athletes who had ramped prior to Hood 2 camp ran through their usuals during Block 1 of on-snow training, accelerating their progress towards a higher degree of difficulty jumps. “They’re getting into new stuff now, which is pretty sweet,” said Cohen.

Also, new this camp was having Cohen on site. Usually, Cohen’s work with the moguls team takes place at U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s Center of Excellence in Park City, Utah. But bringing him out for Hood 2 was a conscious decision Gnoza made as it was the first time the whole team was together with the new rookies and two new additions to the coaching staff, World Cup Coaches Joe Discoe and Riley Campbell. “I always like being where athletes are - that’s pretty impactful,” said Cohen. “It was great to have input from everybody on the team.”

Building and working on team culture is an important practice of the moguls team, so Gnoza used the opportunity to have Cohen run through a team values and communications workshop. “The best teams revisit their team values every year,” explained Cohen. “This was the second time we’ve done that with this group. The team developed their [values] last July; it was good to revisit because we have some new athletes on the team and new staff. It’s a chance for them to define who they want to be and what values they want to guide their actions. Everybody had a chance to use their voice to decide who they wanted to be as a team.”

This second Timberline camp marks the end of the team’s skills development phase in their summer prep period. Their next training stop is El Colorado, Chile, which is when the team will go into their preparing to perform phase with a focus on more top to bottom runs. “Skill development never stops, and never stops improving,” explained Gnoza. “But next you’re going to start looking for performance a little bit but also keep that diversity in there too. I think it’s important that people don’t get locked into ‘I always do the 360 on top and I always do a backflip on the bottom.’ You have to keep trying different approaches.”

Follow along with the moguls athletes of the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team via Instagram @usskiteam.

There is nothing like a hot dip into the pain cave for a winter athlete to check the fitness meter with the 2019-20 competition season less than 100 days out. Recently, a number of U.S. Cross Country Team athletes strapped on the roller skis to do just that at Vermont’s App Gap Challenge, and Colorado’s Summit Roller Ski Festival.

“It’s always fun to just put a bib on this time of year,” said Simi Hamilton (Stratton Mountain, Vt.) after winning the 10th Annual App Gap Challenge a 7k uphill skiathlon on Aug. 3. “We spend so much time just easy training and doing intervales with teammates, but it’s rare in the summer that you are actually putting a bib on and racing. So it's nice to kind of touch base with those emotions again...and it's always fun to push hard.”

The App Gap Challenge featured more than 1,500 feet of climbing and started off with skate technique over mostly rolling roads, except for a steep climb to the Mad River Glen Ski Area parking lot where athletes swapped out their skate skis for classic roller skis to tackle the final push to the summit that featured grades in excess of 10-percent.

“Uphill races have never been my strength, so my strategy was just to hold on for as long as I could to conserve energy whenever possible,” said Sophie Caldwell (Stratton, Vt.) who competed alongside her U.S. Cross Country Team teammate Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury, Vt.). “Caitlin led the whole time (on the skating portion), which was really nice.”

“I led all of the skate, and I really wish that someone else took the lead for a bit, but I couldn’t get them to do it,” added Patterson, who laid down a blistering pace on the skate portion, and held on to the lead through the transition to classic before being overtaken by Caldwell, and eventual winner Katherine Ogden (Landgrove, Vt.). “Katherine, Sophie and I all started out the classic together, but Katherine pulled ahead and was really strong on the classic. I think I burned myself up a bit too much on the skate, but still, it was a good day - a good hard effort!”

Caldwell rolled to the summit in second, while Patterson, who won last year’s App Gap Challenge, held on for third.

At the Summit Roller Ski Festival in Breckenridge, Colo., Noel Keefe (Steamboat Springs, Colo.) made the trip to Summit Country to test his sprint fitness, taking the victory in head-to-head competition against Sweden’s Simon Hallstrom, the 2018 Swedish national biathlon champion. “It was a super fun race and a cool event,” said Keefe, who will also compete for the University of Utah this season. 

With the World Cup season kicking off Thanksgiving weekend in Norway, Hamilton is pleased with his fitness level, and he’ll have a few more opportunities to test it as he heads to Europe next week with U.S. Cross Country teammates Caldwell, Sadie Bjornsen (Anchorage, Alaska), Rosie Brennan (Anchorage, Alaska), Kevin Bolger (Sun Valley, Idaho), Erik Bjornsen (Anchorage, Alaska) and former U.S. Ski Team teammate Andy Newell (Shaftsbury, Vt.) to compete in four roller ski events at the Toppidrettsveka in Norway, August 22-24.

“We’re always a little uncertain about how the race shape is this time of year because we haven’t been doing very much hard stuff,” Hamilton said. “But training has been going really well, I’ve been doing a lot of easy base training, with some threshold work here and there and the body is feeling really good, so I’m psyched.”

Like Hamilton, Keefe is also happy with his fitness level with the competition season on the horizon.

“My fitness is at the place where it should be,” said Keefe, who is also looking forward to getting back on snow Thanksgiving weekend at a training camp in West Yellowstone, Mont. “I have been training in my home town for the past month or so and that has allowed me to do some time trials that I have a lot of historical data on. This has provided me a pretty good picture of where I am, and I am looking forward to this season. I increased my training hours this year and it is hard to tell at this point in the season, but I think the work I am doing is going to pay off in time for race season.”
 

Olympian Alice McKennis (New Castle, Colo.) has gone through her fair share of career ups and downs. In 2013, McKennis landed her first FIS Ski World Cup podium - which just happened to be a victory - on the challenging St. Anton, Austria track. The next season, though, McKennis shattered her right tibial plateau into about 30 pieces in a Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany crash that sidelined her for the remainder of the season. It would take McKennis a ton of hard work and unmatched perseverance to make it back to the podium, which she did at the end of the 2017-18 season in Åre, Sweden, with a third place. 

McKennis grew up on a cattle ranch in New Castle, Colo., but she lived close enough to the mountains for her future career path to make sense. Her father, Greg, took her to Sunlight Mountain Resort in Glenwood Springs, Colo. before she had even turned two. She began racing at age five, following her older sister, Kendra, who later competed on the FIS level for two seasons. When she was nine, McKennis joined Ski Club Vail, the club that was nurturing the all-around skills of Alpine star-in-the-making Lindsey Vonn. McKennis watched in awe and took some valuable mental notes as the U.S. Ski Team phenom, who was five years older than her, tore down the slopes. After several years of bouncing around different ski clubs in Colorado, McKennis landed with the Aspen Valley Ski Club.

Edward Stoner of the Vail Daily recently caught up with McKennis to talk about her progress after her most recent setback - a "freak accident" in 2018, in which McKennis crashed while coaching at a camp for future downhillers in Mammoth Mountain, California. Of course, this would come on the tail-end of one of McKennis' best seasons of her career, with a fifth at the Olympics in Pyeongchang in downhill, and a podium at the World Cup Finals in Åre, Sweden alongside her now-retired teammate Lindsey Vonn (Vail, Colo.). She suffered a transverse fracture of both her tibia and fibula. That was the start of a nagging injury that just wouldn't heal. 

McKennis underwent surgery in Mammoth in May, which entailed getting two titanium rods — one for the tibia and one for the fibula. Doctors were still suggesting that she’d be skiing at some point that winter.

At six weeks, her physician, Dr. William Sterett, of Vail Summit Orthopaedics and the U.S. Ski Team, saw essentially no bone healing in X-rays. She underwent another surgery in July, this time to remove a screw that was potentially slowing the healing.

Six weeks later, there was still little healing. She began to develop a searing pain on the inside of her ankle when she walked. Medical imagery revealed that scarring around the fracture was the source of the pain.

It got to the point where she could barely walk.

“The whole time, my leg was just still broken, and that was really one of the hardest things I’ve had to go through,” she said.

Doctors told her she needed ankle surgery. She’d go home and cry. Then she’d go to the gym push her body to the limit. The rods were effective in stabilizing the bone, allowing her to train relatively hard. But walking was painful. She remembers literally crawling from station to station in the gym at one point.

So, after all of this - you may think to yourself, 'Why keep going?! Is it worth it?' 

For McKennis, it is. She wants to win more World Cup races. She wants to go back to the Olympics. She knows she has more gas left in the tank. The Vail Daily asked her, and here's how she answered: 

“Those are things I still want to achieve and I’m really confident I can, so I’m not ready to give up on that. I’m not ready to stop that dream. I still want to pursue it for a few more years and see what I can accomplish. From when I was young, it was always my dream to do this. So, I’m just not ready yet. I still think I have a lot to give to the sport.”

Keep an eye out for Mckennis, who has returned to snow and will be back with the women's speed team in Portillo, Chile in September. 

Read the full article on VailDaily.com. 

The Sports Education department continues to develop it’s offerings for coaches’ education and recently hired Amanda Kelley as their new instructional designer.  With an extensive background in web design, graphic design, and coding, she will be an asset for improving the coach certification process. 

 Instructional designers are a crucial part of improving educational needs as they have a good understanding of how to create an engaging curriculum that aligns with the needs of the organization. The Sport Education department identified the need for better coach training, and Kelley will bring solutions to fulfill that need. 

“Do you need better tools? What is going to solve your problem?” she explains. Through her work so far with Sports Education, the department decided to develop virtual learning. “So now we have to gather our learning objectives and create an outline curriculum. This will include all of the written content, graphic design, animations, video development, and more.” 

Kelley will create the learning content used in coaches’ certifications levels 100, 200 and 300 by updating existing content and revamping the online certification course. “I am taking the existing content from an old platform and putting it into a newer, nicer, easy-to-use platform and finding ways to better it,” says Kelley. “Having a great learning and certification program can help branch out more accurate information to everybody so it becomes both secondhand and cohesive.” In order to provide accurate content, Kelley will rely heavily on collaboration between the Sports Education staff, coaches and athletes to make sure procedures are translated correctly. 

Kelley’s goals with her new position directly align the Sport Education department’s goals of increasing the number of coach certifications through a new and updated system. “I hope to make it really immersive and interactive. Right now, the courses are very text-heavy, and so I want to make it more user-friendly and more exciting for the user,” she explains. 

A blended learning model is the best practice for delivering a training curriculum to a large group of people. The Sport Education department moved to a blended learning curriculum to drive coach education within U.S. Ski & Snowboard three years ago and all certification courses are being shifted to this model. All courses will contain a series of eLearning modules that provide the overall content, a portfolio that provides an opportunity to develop skills, a face-to-face evaluation where clinic leaders evaluate coaches on their ability to coach, perform movement analysis, and demonstrate skills to the desired competency level, and a final exam that coordinates all of these components into one assessment. 

Knowledgeable, fun and engaging coaches are U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s greatest resource. Being able to effectively train those who work directly with athletes, both through the development process and at the national team level, and to provide consistent content to clubs across the country is what the Sport Education department hopes to achieve through this massive content undertaking. 

“Professional development is important for developing coaches that are equipped to make a lasting positive impact on their athletes,” said Sport Education Director Gareth Trayner. “Creating engaging content, like incorporating the Coaches in the Field series, for instance, makes the content more relevant for coaches participating. The software that we use to create our courses allows us to provide a level of interactivity that makes learning engaging, relevant, and more enjoyable than simply reading through pages of text. Creating this type of blended learning experience where coaches have plenty of time to review and learn the content, participate in activities that develop skills, and collaborate with one another on the hill should increase the number of coaches entering and staying within the coach development pathway.”

Four U.S. Ski & Snowboard athletes took time out of their busy training schedules to give back and inspire the next generation of skiers and snowboarders with Harper For Kids (HFK), a children’s non-profit organization.

HFK was founded by Tim & Peanut Louie Harper in 2008. HFK’s Character Education program is based upon legendary UCLA Coach John Wooden’s “Pyramid of Success,” and their mission is to teach youth essential character traits that will help them achieve their personal best in life. 

“It has been such an honor and thrill for Harper for Kids to team up with several of U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s athletes,” said Peanut Harper. “All of these athletes are such inspiring role models and great examples of what success is all about. The students were so excited to meet them and to learn not only what they do to be the best athlete they can be, but more importantly, the best person they can be. We hope by having these champion athletes share the steps they've taken to be successful, how they handle pressure and expectations, and other challenges in life, that the students can be inspired to believe in themselves, go after their dreams and goals and never give up.”

A special part of HFK programming is the “Pyramid of Success” presentations they provide to schools through video conferencing. HFK brings in great role models to share their positive definition of success and other valuable life lessons that can inspire the students to be the best person they can be. This is where U.S. Ski & Snowboard athletes Maggie Voisin (Whitefish, Mont.), Tess Johnson (Vail, Colo.), Winter Vinecki (Gaylord, Mich.) and Toby Miller (Mammoth Lakes, Calif.) stepped in to offer their expertise. Combined, the athletes were able to reach 1,360 students from 11 of the participating schools, sending messages of empowerment, positivity, ambition, and individuality. 

“I really enjoy sharing my story with kids because I know they look up to it as something they could do one day,” said Johnson. “Being a professional athlete opened up this platform to make a difference, and I want to show the younger generation that they should have the confidence to be themselves, make mistakes, and chase their dreams. It’s so important to me that I prioritize being a role model because if I can inspire confidence in kids, they will go on to do amazing things for the world. My experience with Harper For Kids embodied everything I stand for, and it was an amazing opportunity that every professional athlete should take advantage of to share their story.”

Picture yourself as an elementary school student. The world is your oyster and here come four U.S. National Ski & Snowboard Team athletes ready to share key lessons and experiences to help you succeed. This was by no means a mandatory experience for Voisin, Johnson, Vinecki, or Miller, but rather a chance for them to support a group of wide-eyed students who are hungry for knowledge. U.S. Ski & Snowboard athletes do more than just train and compete, they give back, they inspire, and they represent their sport and fellow teammates to the best of their ability. 

For more information about HFK and to learn how you can support their organization, visit http://www.harperforkids.org.