Two-time Junior World Champion River Radamus was recently featured in the FIS' Q&A series, where he talks about everything from performing under pressure to skiing alongside Ted Ligety and beyond. 

Though he grew up in a ski racing family in Edwards, Colo., River really turned heads when he became the first skier to win three individual gold medals at the 2016 Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer. He has shown a steady progression since, grabbing his first FIS Junior World Ski Championships medal (silver) in super-G in 2018, the 2018 NorAM overall title, and three Junior Worlds medals (gold in super-G and giant slalom, and silver in the team event) as well as scoring his first World Cup points during the 2019 season at Alta Badia, Italy, when he finished 24th.

Who is the most inspiring athlete to you and why?
As an American skier, there’s no bigger inspiration than Bode. I think our team kind of prides itself on doing things a little different from other nations. We have different advantages and disadvantages than other national teams so we have to be a bit unorthodox to succeed in this sport. There was no one more unorthodox than Bode. He always did things his own way and was completely unapologetic about it. And of course the results speak for themselves.  

Ted Ligety has had an important influence on your skiing style, and now you have the opportunity to train with him and discover his secrets. What are the most important lessons you have learned from him?
Haha if I told you his secrets, then they wouldn’t be secrets…

Seriously though, Ted leads by example. When Ted steps on the hill there’s an aura of professionalism that you can feel. He takes his business dead serious in a way that makes you feel guilty if you take it less so. Him being there raises the game of everyone around. 

How important is your team to you?
Team is crucial to me. My team is the reason I am where I am today. Our crew is really tight-knit. We push ourselves and each other extremely hard. We hold each other to a really high standard on and off the hill, and hold each other accountable when we fall short. I think when our standard of excellence is really high, it puts all of us in a position to succeed. We’re working hard right now to cultivate this culture, and make sure it’s sustainable beyond just our group, so that it lives as an understood legacy for years to come.

River will find himself full time on the FIS Ski World Cup circuit this year, so keep an eye on him when World Cup action kicks off in Soelden, Austria later this month.  

Read the full article on FIS-ski.com.

Want to learn more about River?
Follow him on Instagram.
 

Winter is here and you don't want to be left in the lodge! So it's time to learn or refresh yourself, about athlete SafeSport training and background check requirements so you can make the most of your-on-snow competition time this winter. Don't forget, all athletes 18 and older must complete SafeSport training and background checks on or before their 18th birthday. Read on for more information and answers to frequently asked questions.

Athlete SafeSport training highlights: 

Are athletes required to complete SafeSport training? Almost all adult U.S. Ski & Snowboard members (athletes, coaches, officials, and volunteers) are required to complete SafeSport training. Short Term Athlete Members due to their limited participation and Master Athletes who do not i) have regular contact with minor athletes or ii) have authority over minor athletes are exempt from training.

What happens if an athlete’s SafeSport training is not completed prior to turning 18? All athletes must complete SafeSport training no later than their 18th birthday to be eligible for participation/competition in U.S. Ski & Snowboard events and training with your club. Pending members are ineligible to participate. 

If I’m turning 18, can I complete SafeSport training now? Yes, you may complete SafeSport training now if you have parental consent. The consent is built into the SafeSport policy in online registration. Member Services will provide instructions once you’ve registered for membership. 

Does U.S. Ski & Snowboard recommend 17-year-old athletes complete SafeSport training prior to their 18th birthday? Yes. Training must be completed no later than your 18th birthday to avoid being placed on pending status and ineligible from participating in U.S. Ski & Snowboard events. We encourage athletes and their parents to have 17 year old athletes complete training prior to their 18th birthday to avoid any delay in participation/competition. However, you may delay training until closer to your birthday by calling or emailing Member Services.

How will U.S. Ski & Snowboard know I’ve completed training? It’s important that all those who take SafeSport training include their 7-digit U.S. Ski & Snowboard membership number/ID and add U.S. Ski & Snowboard as your membership affiliation when creating your SafeSport account. U.S. Ski & Snowboard will be notified of your course completion automatically when your account includes these two items. In this case, there would be no need to remit your completion certificate.

Athlete background screening highlights:

As an athlete, am I required to undergo background screening? Much like SafeSport training, almost all adult U.S. Ski & Snowboard members (athletes, coaches, officials and volunteers) are now required to undergo periodic criminal background screening. Short Term Athlete Members due to their limited participation and Master Athletes who do not i) have regular contact with minor athletes or ii) have authority over minor athletes are exempt from the background screening requirement.

What happens if I don’t complete the background screening prior to turning 18? All affected athletes will have 45 days from their 18th birthday to complete screening. On day 46, the athlete will be placed on pending status and ineligible to compete.  

If I’m turning 18, can I register for background screening now? Yes, you may register for screening once you’ve registered for membership. Parental consent will be captured within the screening company’s registration process and is required for all those under the age of 18. Member Services will provide instructions once you’ve registered for membership 

Does U.S. Ski & Snowboard recommend 17-year-old athletes complete background screening prior to their 18th birthday? Yes. Background screening can take several weeks. We want to avoid the potential for athletes being placed on pending status and prohibited from participating in U.S. Ski & Snowboard events. We encourage athletes and their parents to have 17-year-old athletes complete screening prior to their 18th birthday to avoid any delay in participation/competition. Athletes will have a maximum of 45 days from their 18th birthday to complete the screening process.

The youngest woman to win an Olympic Snowboarding gold medal and the reigning FIS Halfpipe World Champion Chloe Kim today announced she will be taking the 2019-20 season off from competition. The announcement was released on Kim’s YouTube Channel earlier today, where she commented on her motivations and reasoning for the brief stint away from the competition scene. 

“I have decided to take this season off from competition and I will be going to school at Princeton University,” she said with her signature Chloe Kim smile. “It was a tough decision for me to make. I love snowboarding and I love competing, but I have been doing it for my whole life pretty much... It was hard for me mentally to compete so much as our competition schedule is just insane. I just wanted to give myself one year to take a break.”

Although allowing for a mental refresh is a significant part of her decision, Chloe also commented on the benefits of taking a season off could have for her physical health. 

Referring to the 2019 U.S. Open, Kim said, “when I broke my ankle, it was a very minor fall. That made me think my body is tired. It can’t take slams as well as it used to. I take care of myself, I train, but at the end of the day, I think my body was just tired. I want to be in good health for the next Olympics and for the rest of my life, so I feel this was a good decision.” 

In addition to Kim’s efforts to remain mentally and physically healthy, she also has her eyes on the bigger picture, being a well rounded human being. 

“When you get stuck in the same routine over and over again, year after year, it gets pretty hard, she said. “I felt like a lost part of myself. I felt like I didn’t have a life outside of snowboarding...It made me a little nervous thinking that my life was 100% snowboarding. After the Olympics, I took the SAT’s, ACT’s, and got into my dream school. I’m really excited to set foot in the classroom… I’m really excited to meet new people and explore that part of my life.”

Although Kim’s news may come as a shock to the competitive snowboarding world, she has made it clear that she is not going anywhere in the long run and we can expect her to be dropping back into the halfpipe come the start of the 2020-21 season. Last season, Kim topped the podium at five out of the six events winning at a rate of 83%. Without the most dominant women in snowboard halfpipe competition on the start list this season, keep watch for the young up and coming riders looking to fill what are very large shoes. 

Check out Chloe's YouTube Announcement
 

U.S. Ski & Snowboard today announced the 2019-20 Race to the Cup Series. The Race to the Cup parallel giant slalom and parallel slalom will consist of four NorAm stops with the final stop selected as the NorAm Finals. The Race to the Cup is designed to bridge the gap between grassroots and FIS World Cup level competitions. The Tour also qualifies athletes to Junior World Championships and Project Gold Development Camps. 

The Tour will kick off in Minnesota with a stop at Buck Hill. The Tour then heads west to Steamboat Springs, Colo. and Holiday Valley, N.Y. USASA Nationals at Copper Mountain, Colo. will serve as the final stop of the Tour and NorAm Finals. 

The Race to the Cup Tour is open to athletes ages 15 who are ready to take their racing to the next level. Athletes must have a current FIS and U.S. Ski & Snowboard membership to compete in the events. 

“We are excited to return to these excellent locations for the Race to the Cup event series, ” said U.S. Ski & Snowboard Sport Development Senior Manager Ashley Deibold. “These events showcase the top up and coming snowboard racing athletes.”

Please visit usskiandsnowboard.org for detailed schedules and registration information. 

SCHEDULE

Buck Hill, Minn.
December 20-22, 2020

Steamboat Springs, Colo.
January 23-25, 2020

Holiday Valley, N.Y.
February 2-4, 2020

USASA National Championships (PGS and PSL NorAm Finals)
Copper Mountain, Colo.
March 30-31, 2020

A childhood Christmas present turned Head Moguls Coach Matt Gnoza into a lifelong skier, and the sport soon became a family tradition. Matt remembers always looking for the “next level of skiing,” which is how he got into crushing bumps. After 21 years with Killington Mountain School, where Matt served in various capacities, including Development Program Director - that’s right he even had oversight over the alpine development programs, a big deal for a freestyle coach - Matt joined U.S. Ski & Snowboard following the 2014 Olympic Winter Games. A sense of curiosity fuels Matt’s coaching philosophy, and as someone who has raised two accomplished freeskiing sons, he understands the importance of looking beyond his discipline to dig deep into what good coaching, ski related or not, is all about. In this next installment of our “Coach’s Column,” Matt shares what he and his staff are up to in disrupting the “norm” in elite moguls skiing.

We’re bringing 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 Thanksgiving 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,

Lara Carlton

Freestyle Communications Manager

------------------

At the end of last season my staff and I reflected and asked ourselves, “What can we do differently?” Every moguls team in the world is going about things the same way.

There aren’t many variabilities you can build into a moguls run: it has to be a series of turns and jumps. But there is variability you can build into how you teach moguls skiing. We realized we’ve been teaching the same way that everyone is teaching, talking about “bending our knees” or “adjusting our hands,” different things like that. But when we stepped outside what I like to call the “moguls box,” and did some digging, we found this concept of external cueing - when the athlete focuses on the outcome of his or her movement.

What we’re working on is finding different ways to realize what we say really matters. We want to use words that carry specific information that illicit a certain physical movement. That’s our goal. For example, taking off on a jump. We used to talk about “pressing off of your toes” and “extending your knees” and “lifting with your arms.” And now, rather than “pressing with our toes,” we’re “pushing through the jump, we’re extending to the sky.” We’ve taken these internal cues and turned them into external cues in a way to give the athletes something to work on. We’re trying to really get the athletes to go “oh that’s what that’s going to feel like.”

Change doesn’t happen overnight - especially in a sport that’s become so entrenched in tradition. I’ve been coaching moguls skiing for going on 28 years now. We still ski on pretty narrow skis and we still go through the moguls and perform jumps. Albeit the speeds are faster, the technique is cleaner, the jumps are more difficult than they were. But the sport on the whole hasn’t changed that much, so what you have to do is not be afraid to try new things so that we can then advance the sport.

I relate it a lot to baseball. Just recently there’s been a lot of talk about all of the hitters hitting high-fly balls and this thing called “launch angle”. They’re seeing a dramatic change in how many home runs are being hit around the league because everyone is focused on the launch angle of the ball when it comes off of the bat. So, I asked our staff, “What is moguls’ launch angle?” What can we find in our sport to make our athletes hit a homerun every time they’re at the top of the course? We’re finding that in this external cuing the athletes are starting to think about their skiing a little bit differently and thinking about ways in which they can make that adjustment other than just hitting a little ground ball and hoping that it does all right.

In moguls there has always been this focus of perfecting your next trick before you climb the ladder to the next one. As a staff we’re working on making sure we’re not sweating the small stuff through the variation training we’ve implemented and combined this with external cueing. We need to focus on making sure it works and is going to get scored. We’re not going to focus on “oh that back tuck was good, but the feet could have been just a tiny bit tighter.” Were they tight enough to get a good, high score? Yes. Then we’re good.

The current team has really bought into the randomized training approach. During camps they’re not just hiking or lapping and going up to do the same backflip over and over again all day. They’re going from a backflip to a back full to a cork 7 back to a backflip back to a cork 10 or, oh let’s add a grab on a backflip. The athletes are feeling really good and successful when all of a sudden, they just did six different jumps and stomped the landing on all of them.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Okay Matt I get it, you’re totally attempting to revolutionize the moguls world one external cue at a time. But how do you measure the success of this?” Glad you asked. From training we are starting to see desired results, so that tells me we’re achieving the skills we’re after. And then hopefully through these successfully developing these skills we’re going to see the results when competition day comes around. This team is fired up and hungry to build off of the momentum from last season.

Once you stop learning, you die. We’re not winning every week yet so there’s got to be something else out there that can help make us that much better. My approach to coaching has always been an openness and a willingness to learn from others. And I think I have a pretty good filter where I can take information from multiple places and say, “this piece of information was really solid I am going to put into my coaching and maybe that piece I’m going to let go.” Plus, after 28 years it just gets boring to say the same thing over and over.

This process has been fun and rewarding and it aligns with our coach statements we created as an organization through the USOPC’s Appollo Project. It’s been a fun process to think differently about the turn; about the jump. It’s different, but it’s the same. We’re still trying to get athletes to jump as high as they can and perform clean tricks. We’re still trying to get them to absorb over the top of the mogul, or edge of the ski, or have good pressure in the boots - but now we’re saying it differently. That part’s been neat to me because I kind of feel like I’m teaching a new thing, even though I’m not.

Anticipation builds before the beginning of any big event, whether it’s a World Cup competition or the New York Gold Medal Gala. Making a grand entrance on snow or on stage takes preparation. 

The athletes of U.S. Ski & Snowboard work hard all summer in the gym and at training venues perfecting their craft so that they’re ready when they get in those first start gates of the World Cup season. But on October 24, these legends will be stepping out of their snow gear and into their finery to attend the 53rd annual New York Gold Medal Gala. What goes into making sure these stars shine?

Before competitions, each athlete has their own rituals or traditions to get them in the right headspace. Before the Gala, a common tradition among attending athletes is to take advantage of the Raika Studio salon experience presented by 20-plus year partner John Paul Mitchell Systems’. In the hours leading up to the night’s festivities, the hair stylists of Raika are hard at work turning their beanie-hair White Carpet-ready. 

Personal style counts big for the athletes of U.S. Ski & Snowboard. From gracefully arcing around slalom gates to getting sendy on a big air jump, each athlete brings their personality to their run. Competing at the most elite level not only requires technical prowess, but also artistry. You can feel the passion when watching three-time Olympian aerials skier Ashley Caldwell perform quadruple-twisting backflips off the triple kicker, besting the rest in her sport. 

“We all try to show off our personalities when training and competing, but there’s only so much you can do wearing ski pants,” says Ashley. “So when we get the chance to go to the Raika Studio for the Gala, and get dressed up, it’s really fun to show people a different side of us. I love seeing a different side of my teammates and other athletes I train with at the gym and on the hill. It’s a unique experience to come together and celebrate the coming season.”

The New York Gold Medal Gala will raise nearly $2 million in funds that will directly support athletes’ opportunities to train and compete at the highest level. Paul Mitchell and the stylists at Raika Studio look forward to using their artistry and expertise to beautify skiing and snowboarding’s biggest stars for what is a social highlight of the year. 

Be a part of the celebration from wherever you might find yourself on Oct. 24. National ski and snowboard team athletes are privately funded and receive no government assistance. Technology connects us more than ever and fans can show their support remotely. 

Wrapped in a “Winter Carnival” theme, the fifth annual St. Louis fundraiser - hosted by Ron Kruszewski and headlined by Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin and teammate and St. Louis native, Ainsley Proffit - raised nearly half a million dollars for U.S. Ski & Snowboard athletes. 

The event, which featured stilt walkers, jugglers and a dancing lady in a large floating ball in the pool, was presented by Stifel Financial Corporation - where Ron serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer. Event sponsors included iHeart Media, Centene Charitable Foundation, GFI Digital, and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. 

Ron is passionate about supporting our Teams, and inspires his friends and colleagues to support the Team as well. The St. Louis community showed up in a big way, raising the largest sum of money the St. Louis fundraiser has raised since its inception five years ago. Mikaela and Ainsley, along with their family members, joined the event - where Mikaela even got up on stage and performed Beyonce’s “Daddy Lessons” with U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s Special Events Coordinator Elaine Minahan. Mikaela detailed the series of nerve-inducing events on her Instagram stories, but she was a hit with the 300+ guests! 

Mikaela has a few more days at home before she heads to Europe for on-snow training in Austria prior to the FIS Ski World Cup season kickoff in Sölden, Austria on October 26. Proffit will once again be skiing in the NorAm series this season. 

The U.S. Ski & Snowboard Foundation hosts a variety of special events across the country that raise over $2 million for the Team annually. These featured events provide the perfect opportunity to meet the athletes and hear their stories firsthand. Special events account for a significant portion of the Team's annual fund and are supported and chaired by U.S. Ski & Snowboard Trustees, private donors, individuals, and businesses. To learn more about these events click here.

To support U.S. Ski & Snowboard on their quest to become the Best in the World, Donate Today!

Want to learn more about Mikaela and Ainsley?
Follow Ainsley on Instagram
Follow Mikaela on Instagram

U.S. Ski & Snowboard today announced the 2020 Hole Shot Snowboardcross and Skicross Tour. The Hole Shot Tour will consist of four NorAm stops with the final stop selected as the NorAm Finals. The Hole Shot Tour is designed to bridge the gap between grassroots and FIS World Cup level competitions.  The Tour also qualifies athletes to the Junior World Championships and Project Gold Development Camps. 

The Tour will kick off in New York at Gore Mountain. The Tour then heads west to Colorado’s Ski Cooper. The USASA Nationals at Copper Mountain, Colo., will serve as the final stop of the Tour and NorAm Finals. 

The Hole Shot Tour is open to athletes ages 15 (SBX) / 16 (SX) and older, who are ready to take their racing to the next level. Athletes must have a current FIS and U.S. Ski & Snowboard membership to compete in the events. Each stop will also include a U.S. Revolution Tour event catering to the 13-15-year-old age groups. 

“We are looking forward to another great Hole Shot Tour,” said U.S. Ski & Snowboard Sport Development Senior Manager Ashley Deibold. “These events showcase the top up and coming snowboardcross and skicross athletes.”

Registration has opened. Click here to sign up for different races. 

SCHEDULE

Gore, N.Y.
Feb. 3-7, 2020

Ski Cooper, Colo.
Feb. 21-25, 2020

USASA National Championships 

SBX NorAm Finals
Copper Mountain, CO 
March 28-29, 2020  

SX NorAm Finals
Copper Mountain, CO 
April 4-5, 2020  

STAMFORD, Conn. – NBC Sports Gold’s “Snow Pass” returns today, giving fans access to live and on-demand domestic and international competitions of seven Olympic winter sports from October 2019 through March 2020. “Snow Pass” will feature an unprecedented 900 hours – including nearly 100 exclusive hours – of coverage of FIS alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, snowboarding, nordic combined, ski jumping, and biathlon events. The 2019-20 “Snow Pass” is available for purchase now for $69.99 by visiting NBCSportsGold.com.

A complement to the hundreds of hours of Olympic winter sport programming airing across NBC, NBCSN, Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA, and their respective digital platforms, “Snow Pass” includes every remaining stop of the World Cup season for each of the seven sports, including exclusive live and on-demand coverage of many alpine skiing events, beginning Oct. 26. Details regarding NBC Sports’ World Cup TV coverage will be announced in the near future.

U.S. Olympic gold medalists Mikaela Shiffrin and Ted Ligety, as well as Alice McKennis and Jackie Wiles - who will both be returning to competition after sitting out the 2019 season - and Steven Nyman, Travis Ganong, Bryce Bennett and Tommy Ford will headline the U.S. Alpine Ski Team in 2019-20. Shiffrin won gold in giant slalom at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics and has three Olympic medals to her name. On the World Cup circuit last year, she was the first athlete to ever win 17 races during a season, breaking the previous record of 14, and now holds 60 career World Cup victories, fifth-most all time.   

Headlining the 2019-20 U.S. Snowboard Team are PyeongChang Olympic gold medalists Jamie Anderson and Red Gerard, as well as Maddie Mastro and Chris Corning. Representing the U.S. Freeski Team are PyeongChang Olympic medalists Brita Sigourney, Alex Ferreira, and Nick Goepper as well as Alex Hall, Julia Krass, and Maggie Voisin.

NBC Sports Gold, NBC Sports Digital’s direct-to-consumer live streaming product, holds the exclusive rights to all FIS events held in Austria, and will stream the first FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup races of the 2019-20 season from Sölden, Austria, on “Snow Pass” on Oct. 26-27, where Mikaela Shiffrin is expected to make her season debut.

NBC Sports’ 2019-20 “Snow Pass” schedule includes events in Killington, Vt. (Nov. 30 – Dec. 1); Atalanta, GA (Dec. 20 – 21), Deer Valley, Utah (Feb. 6 – 8); Oslo, Norway (Mar. 7 – 8); Are, Sweden (Mar. 13 – 14); and Minneapolis, Minn. (Mar. 17). The Hahnenkamm downhill race from Kitzbühel, Austria on January 24 is exclusive to “Snow Pass” subscribers.

NBC Sports Gold is available on Apple iOS, Android, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Roku and online at NBCSportsGold.com. NBC Sports Gold is powered by Playmaker Media, NBC Sports Digital’s technology service which provides end-to-end support for companies in need of best-in-class live streaming and VOD solutions. Click here for more information. 

Following is the schedule for NBC Sports Gold’s 2019-20 “Snow Pass” (organized by sport):

Schedules are subject to change.

ABOUT NBC SPORTS GOLD
NBC Sports Gold is NBC Sports’ direct-to-consumer live streaming product that provides sports fans with access to exclusive premium sports events and content, live and on-demand, at an affordable price. Launched in 2016 with a single cycling product, NBC Sports Gold currently offers 17 individual sports “passes” – twelve domestic (PGA TOUR LIVE, Premier League, Premier League Match Day, INDYCAR, Cycling, Track & Field, Premier Lacrosse League, Speed Skating, Rugby, Rugby World Cup, Supercross, and Snow, consisting of seven Olympic winter sports); two regional (Blazers and Philly); one combination (Supercross and Pro Motocross), two domestic and international (Figure Skating and Pro Motocross); and one international-only (Notre Dame Football). Find NBC Sports Gold in the NBC Sports app available in the U.S. on Apple iOS & tvOS, Android, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Chromecast and NBCSportsGold.com, and also on Xfinity X1 and Xfinity Flex.

Release courtesy of NBC.

Laurenne Ross has announced that she will sit out the 2019-20 season to rehab a left knee injury sustained during a warm-up run prior to her downhill training run at the 2019 FIS Ski World Championships in Are, Sweden. 

Laurenne, who suffered a severe knee injury at U.S. Alpine Championships late in the 2017 season, worked tirelessly to make a comeback in time to qualify for the 2018 Olympic Team. She was a part of the fastest downhill team in the world in 2018. She struggled to find her groove early in the 2018-19 season, but had made considerable steps forward in the month of January, scoring inside of the points in every single start from the new year to World Championships - including three top-15 results. 

She has been working hard in the gym to strengthen her body and has been doing all of the things she loves - from riding her bike and climbing to creating art and music - in order to strengthen her mind as well. Through U.S. Ski & Snowboard's Athlete Career & Education (ACE) connections, she recently attended Dartmouth's Tuck Next Step program, a general management program for athletes and veterans to hone their business acumen and apply the valuable skills they’ve gained in their fields to the world of business as they begin the next step of their careers. 

Laurenne and Land Rover U.S. Alpine Ski Team teammate/boyfriend Tommy Ford recently took over the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Instagram story to give fans some insight into a day in their lives in the gym and in nature. She will look to return healthy - in mind and body - to competition for the 2020-21 season, where the highlight will be World Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo, ITA - a favorite venue of Laurenne and her fellow women's alpine speed teammates. 

Laurenne shared her thoughts in an Instagram post on Wednesday: 

Since my crash at World Championships this February, I've been relentlessly debating whether or not to continue ski racing. After so many crashes and serious injuries, it doesn't seem like the "smart" way to move forward. I cherish my health and want to be able to ski, hike, and ride my bike well into my old age....and this last crash made me question whether that would be possible. If I am to continue life as a ski racer, I would be inherently taking big risks that may not allow me to maintain my health in a sustainable way. Especially after so many concussions, I've recently felt that the easiest and safest path to living the life that I want is down one that does not subject my body to the injuries it inevitably endures through ski racing.

But I'm not one to take the easy or safe route. And ski racing is just too dang fun. So after going back and forth, weighing my options and contemplating my future, I've decided to keep skiing.

I'm working hard on my recovery, but am still not ready to ski. My knee has been doing well and responding great to rehab, but I've resolved to take this recovery slower than my last one (as I was rushing back for the Olympic season). I want to do it right: make sure I'm 100% ready when I get back on snow. 100% strong, 100% healthy -- in body and in mind. I'm hoping to get back on snow sometime in the next few months, but that won't give me enough time to properly prepare for this upcoming winter racing season. So I'm going to take this winter off to regain my strength and prepare for the 2020-2021 season.

I've been missing skiing a lot lately, especially while my team has been down in Chile training. I miss the mountains, I miss the snow, I miss the speed and the rush and the feeling I get while racing down a course. I'm going to have a tough time watching my teammates and friends race all winter, while I can't be out there. But I know, deep down, this is the best decision for me. I need more time, so I'm going to take it.

Thank you all so much for your support on this journey! I'm incredibly grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life, and could not do what I've done without you all 💜💙❤️

Want to learn more about Laurenne?
Follow her journey on Instagram and Facebook.