The Downhill races that were supposed to take place in Val d’Isere were relocated to Reiteralm, Austria, and were changed to a Super Combined and a Super G. I only competed in the Super G on the 16th. Reiteralm isn’t a World Cup hill—it is extremely flat, especially on the top—but considering the snow shortage in Europe, it was great to just be competing!

I skied well and I am happy with my performance. I got 14th place. Obviously it would have been nice to be a little bit faster, but getting my first top-15 for the season is a good confidence boost. I know I am right in there and knocking on the door of getting a podium because I was 2nd—just 0.02 behind the winner—in the split time for the most technical section of the course. It is going to happen!

After Reiteralm I decided to skip the two Downhills that were scheduled back in France in order to do some GS races instead. Given my size and athleticism, I believe that much more of my promise lies in GS rather than Downhill. So I raced one FIS GS and two Europa Cup GS’s so that I could be better prepared going into my next GS World Cup in Semmering, Austria on the 28th. I am looking forward to Semmering because I know that my GS is really strong right now, and I feel like I have just as good of a chance to qualify for World Champs in GS as I do in Super G.

In the meantime, I am spending Christmas with my teammates at our apartments in Kirchberg, Austria. We are taking every measure to make the best of our holiday away from home. We are putting presents under our Christmas tree, baking cookies, making a huge Christmas breakfast, and we even are filling stockings. I miss my family but I do get to go home for four days over New Years and it will be really nice to spend some time with them then.

Happy Holidays!

This year was one of the first seasons that I was going to be totally healthy going into the first race… Then I crashed on my last run of the last day of our last training camp. Considering how scary of a crash it was—I flipped over the safety net and tumbled thirty feet through the woods—I am extremely fortunate that I only broke my thumb.

I’d only had my cast on for two days when I skied my first race in Aspen. Despite the pain in my hand, I was optimistic and positive about racing because I had been skiing really strong GS prior to the injury. The cast on my right hand proved to be more awkward to ski with than I expected and only twelve gates into my race run I hooked it on a gate. I was out of the course before I knew it. It was disappointing, but I am sure I will get more accustomed to the cast over time. I will remain in the cast for a total of six weeks, and will ski with a splint for the remainder of the season.

After Aspen we headed north to Lake Louise, Canada. With -30° weather, it was the coldest I’ve ever seen it up there. We had to wear full facemasks to prevent from getting frostbite… it was brutal! I was 33rd in the first Downhill race, just missing the points, and 41st in the second one. Both results were frustrating because I skied well but just wasn’t especially speedy.

I went into the Super G race ranked 10th in the world so I had the privilege of participating in my first public bib draw as a top-15 ranked racer. I got a little low on a couple of gates, but my run was a solid one. It felt good to get back into the Super G vibe that I enjoyed so much last year. I ended up in 27th, which is nowhere near my expectations, but it was easy to brush off and move on because I knew I did my best, plus I have some more technical races on the horizon.

The races scheduled for St. Moritz following our races Lake Louise were cancelled due to an extreme lack of snow in Europe. The Downhill and Super G scheduled for Val d’Isere, France on the 16th and 17th are still up in the air depending on snowfall. If these races are cancelled as well, I will race in some Norams in Canada instead.

Since the competition season concluded, I’ve been very busy doing a ton of different things… To start, I completed my fifth quarter at Dartmouth College in the Spring, during which I finally declared my major which will be Philosophy modified with Eastern Religion. In the middle of my term at school I attended a U.S. Ski Team bike trip in Southern Utah just prior to my visit to Washington D.C. with the rest of the U.S. Olympic Team. The trip to D.C. was especially memorable, not only because I met the President at the White House, but because the event helped me truly grasp the fact that I now am, and forever will be, an Olympian.

After I finished up at school I had the pleasure of attending a conditioning camp in Maui with the rest of my teammates, which was definitely the best dryland camp I have ever been to during my eight years on the Team! An extra four days of surfing highlighted my rare trip to a warm place. This summer I also did some coaching with my old race program, CMAC, at Mt. Hood, went on an amazing yoga/surfing retreat on Vancouver Island with Lululemon, and rode my bikes a LOT.

My first on-snow camp in New Zealand in August was productive and fun. I was glad to have many days of good GS training, and succeeded at totally over-hauling my GS technique. Although it’s not quite consistent yet, I am confident that the changes I am working on in GS will help move me into the top tier of GS skiers in the World. It took Tiger Woods a little while to dial in his new swing before he really started winning again, so I am telling myself to be patient with the development of the new technique…

Our second training camp took place the second two weeks of September in Portillo, Chile. Although we were in South America later in the year than normal, there was still plenty of snow and the training was awesome. I had a few really fast days of GS and Super G—I even won the Super G practice-race (the “Portillo Cup”) held among my teammates, for which my coaches awarded me a stuffed animal trophy. The great training in Chile helped boost my confidence going into our final camp before the Soelden World Cup GS at the end of October.