2021-22 U.S. Alpine Ski Team Nominations Announced
May 04, 2021·Alpine Skiing
U.S. Ski & Snowboard has announced the U.S. Alpine Ski Team nominations for the 2021-22 competition season. Nominations include those active athletes who qualified based on published selection criteria in the prior season.
Two-time Olympic champion and six-time world champion Mikaela Shiffrin and Bormio, Italy super-G victor Ryan Cochran-Siegle are among 44 athletes nominated to represent the U.S. Ski Team for the 2021-22 season. The U.S. Alpine Ski Team had more depth during the 2020-21 season than they’ve experienced in years, grabbing 18 podiums and four victories across five athletes—led by Shiffrin, with three victories, and Cochran-Siegle with two podiums and his career-first World Cup victory.
Add to that four World Championship medals for Shiffrin, two World Junior Championship medals, including Ben Ritchie’s gold in slalom and AJ Hurt’s bronze in slalom, and career-first podiums by Paula Moltzan in the parallel and Breezy Johnson with four-straight third-place finishes in downhill, and it’s clear the team was absolutely firing from all cylinders and feeding off of each other’s success. Let’s not forget continued success by 2019 Xfinity Birds of Prey victor Tommy Ford, who snagged second place in an early-season Santa Caterina, Italy’s giant slalom.
During the 2021-22 season at the World Cup level, the North American events—including the much-anticipated Homelight Killington Cup in Killington, Vt., Xfinity Birds of Prey at Beaver Creek, Colo., and Lake Louise speed series—were sadly canceled, in an effort to minimize travel and find efficiencies in an already complicated nearly 80-race schedule. The NorAm calendar was impossible as well, due to travel restrictions between the United States and Canada. The crew looks forward to 2021-22, hoping for more normalcy and a return to the North American races.
The 2020-21 season will kick off with the FIS Ski World Cup opener in Soelden, Austria October 23-24, and will feature the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, China, from February 4-20, 2022. Due to COVID-19, the Olympic test events in 2020 and 2021 were canceled, so both the men and the women will head into the Olympics without having skied the tracks.
The 44 athletes nominated will be supported by a strong coaching staff, committed to “winning at every level,” which is Alpine Director Jesse Hunt’s mantra. “We are inspired by this group of nominated athletes that not only endured but excelled in one of the most difficult seasons in memory. They persevered through a pandemic and remained determined to achieve greatness in spite of the daily challenges. It is a truly extraordinary group and we are proud to announce their nomination to the team in an Olympic year.”
Alpine athletes at all levels and across disciplines have already begun training for the 2021-22 season, kicking off pre-season camps at Official Training Sites Mammoth Mountain and Squaw Valley in California.
Each athlete accepting the nomination to U.S. Ski Team receives world-class program support, along with access to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Center of Excellence, as well as athletic benefits including elite coaching, sport science, sports medicine, and high-performance staff, and education opportunities.
A 2021-22 staff announcement will be forthcoming, while an official U.S. Alpine Ski Team announcement will be made in the fall.
2021-22 U.S. Alpine Ski Team Nominations
A TEAM
Women
Breezy Johnson (Victor, Idaho; Rowmark Ski Academy; 1/19/1996)
Paula Moltzan (Prior Lake, Minn.; Buck Hill Ski Team/Ski and Snowboard Club Vail; 4/7/1994)
Nina O’Brien (Edwards, Colo.; Burke Mountain Academy/Squaw Valley Ski Team; 11/29/1997)
Mikaela Shiffrin (Eagle-Vail, Colo.; Burke Mountain Academy/Ski & Snowboard Club Vail; 3/13/1995)
Men
Bryce Bennett (Squaw Valley, Calif.; Squaw Valley Ski Team; 7/14/1992)
Ryan Cochran-Siegle (Starksboro, Vt.; Cochran’s/Mount Mansfield Ski & Snowboard Club; 3/27/1992)
Tommy Ford (Bend, OR; Mt. Bachelor Ski Education Foundation; 3/20/1989)
Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley, Calif.; Squaw Valley Ski Team; 7/14/1988)
Steven Nyman (Sundance, Utah; Park City Ski and Snowboard/Sundance Ski Team; 2/12/1982)
See the full news story here.
Release courtesy of US Ski and Snowboard
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