When many people think of Olympic skiers and where they come from, the slate is fairly blank. Growing up, these athletes don’t compete in front of crowds or perform at big-name sports colleges, or even recognizable minor-league systems. Their spectators are mostly parents who stand at the finish hopping from foot to foot.
They might come from out west, the Rockies, where the whole world seems created for winter sports. But check out the ski squad the U.S. will be sending to South Korea this month, and you’ll find plenty of New Englanders, kids you see at any ski area, flickering through gates or getting air in the terrain parks. Some go off to one of the many ski academies in the Northeast, and many go to significant college ski teams, competing for the ultimate prize, a national championship.
Here are some of the prime contenders for U.S. Olympic ski and snowboard team selections for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games.
Alpine
Mikaela Shiffrin will lead the U.S. alpine team along with Lindsey Vonn. Just 22, Shiffrin, one of the leading skiers in the history of the team, was a student at Burke Mountain Academy before she left New England for Vail, Colorado.
Andrew Weibrecht is a veteran of the U.S. Olympic and World Cup teams who already owns two Olympic medals in speed events, focusing on both downhill and super-G. After he did his early skiing in New York state, he skied for Dartmouth before joining the U.S. national teams.
David Chodounsky is a 33-year-old slalom racer who helped Dartmouth win an NCAA championship, then competed for the U.S. Olympic and World Cup teams. At Dartmouth he was captain of the national championship team, then made the transition to the U.S.team, where his best finishes have been 15th and 19th in slalom.
Ryan Cochran-Siegle, 25, from Starksboro, Vt., is a longtime member of the the Mansfield Ski & Snowboard Club in Stowe. This technical specialist comes from a long ski pedigree. His mother, Barbara, won Olympic gold in slalom at the 1972 Sapporo Games. This is Cochran’s fifth year on the World Cup team and he’s ranked as the 83rd technical racer on the World Cup. His best World Cup giant slalom finish is 20th.
AJ Ginnis attended Green Mountain Valley School and Dartmouth as a technical racer.
Slalom specialist Nolan Kasper of Warren, Vt., returned to the World Cup after nearly three years battling injuries.
Freestyle
Troy Murphy, a motocross racer from Bethel, Maine, who attended Gould Academy, is one of the top moguls skiers on the U.S. team.
Nessa Dziemian from East Hampstead, N.H., was North American champion in moguls in 2015. After her early success, a knee injury sidelined her last season, but she is considered a definite medals contender.
Mac Bohonnon is an aerials specialist from Madison, Conn., who skied for the Stratton Mountain Freestyle Team. Bohonnon placed second last season in the World Cup aerials standings and is coming off a fifth-place finish at the Sochi Olympics.
Kiley McKinnon from Madison, Conn., has finished in the top 10 in the World Cup standings for the past three seasons and in 2015 was World Cup aerials champion.
Eric Loughran, an aerials specialist from Pelham, N.H., and the Loon Mountain Freestyle Team, made the U.S. World Championships team last season.
Nordic
Jessie Diggins is a product of the Stratton Mountain School Elite team and a fourtime World Championships medalist who will be competing in her second Olympic Games.
Simi Hamilton, a Middlebury College graduate, lives in Vermont and trains at Stratton Mountain. He has four podium finishes on the World Cup circuit.
Sophie Caldwell is a member of the well-known family of nordic ski racers. She lives in Peru, Vt., has four World Cup podiums and placed sixth at the Sochi Olympics.
Patrick Caldwell, Sophie’s cousin, was the 2015 NCAA champion from Dartmouth. He currently lives in Lyme, N.H.
Andy Newell from Shaftsbury, Vt., will be making his fourth trip to the Olympics. He is married to another top nordic racer, Erika Flowers.
Liz Stephen is a two-time Olympian from East Montpelier, Vt., who skied at Burke Mountain Academy and has been on the World Cup podium six times.
Julia Kern, from Waltham, Mass., races for Dartmouth and placed second in the U.S. championships in 2016.
Ida Sargent is a skier from Barton, Vt., who had two podium finishes at test events held at the Olympic venue of PyeongChang.
Katharine Ogden from Landgrove, Vt., this season became the first U.S. skier to win an individual medal at the World Junior Championships.
Snowboarding
Seth Wescott is a Sugarloaf, Maine, native who honed his skills at Carrabassett Valley Academy before a slew of World Cup wins and two Olympic gold medals in boardercross. He won the first boardercross race in its first running at the 2006 Torino Games. He repeated the feat in 2010 at Vancouver, but had to skip Sochi because of an injury. When he’s not racing on the circuit, Wescott enjoys solo backcountry boarding trips in the Alaskan wilderness.
Lindsey Jacobellis will enter her fourth Olympic Games in February. Winner of many World Cup events, she won a silver medal in Torino. She was in the development years of boardercross and grew up boarding in the unofficial Eastern mecca of the sport, Stratton Mountain.
Jonathan Cheever is a native of Saugus, Mass., who is also a boardercross athlete. Off the hill, he works as a plumber to help pay for travel and coaching on the snowboard circuit. Never an Olympian, Cheever, ranked sixth in the world, has an advantage to other team hopefuls because he already has made the podium in a qualification event.
Kelly Clark is a veteran of the U.S. team from West Dover, Vt. She attended Mount Snow Academy then joined the national team for four Olympic appearances and has three medals (one gold, two bronze) under her belt.
Ty Walker will be entering her second Olympic Games. The Stowe, Vt., native now attends Brown University. As a member of the slopestyle team, she earned a 14th-place showing in Sochi.
Julie Marino is a Westport, Conn., native and big-air and slopestyle rider who, among her other achievements, has the unique accomplishment of winning the big-air competition at Fenway Park in 2016.
Freeskiing
Devin Logan of West Dover, Vt., holds multiple overall AFP titles, X Games medals and World Cup podiums. She won silver in slopestyle at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.
Julia Krass of Hanover, N.H., qualified for the 2014 Olympics in slopestyle.
Annalisa Drew of Andover, Mass., was a member of the inaugural Olympic halfpipe skiing team in 2014, finishing ninth at the Sochi Games.
Caroline Claire of Manchester Center, Vt., is a rising star on the slopestyle team.
Biathlon
Often considered, at least in this country, a strange hybrid of cross-country skiing, biathlon consists of classical nordic racing with target shooting. This combination tests the athlete’s ability to control one’s body after racing on skis with heightened heart rate and heavy breathing. Each miss with the .22 rifle is a deduction from the racer’s overall score.
Susan Dunklee of Barton, Vt., already has punched her ticket to the Olympics based on her silver-medal performance at last season’s biathlon World Championships. According to Max Cobb, president of U.S. Biathlon, Dunklee “can contend for a medal in every race she starts.”
Sean Doherty of Center Conway, N.H., became the alltime leader in individual medals at the IBU Youth/Junior World Championships in 2016, winning three medals to bring his career total to 10.
Emily Dreissigacker of Morrisville, Vt., is a former All-American rower at Dartmouth.
Clare Egan from Cape Elizabeth, Maine, was a member of the 2015 and 2016 World Championship teams.
