The Sochi Winter Olympics of 2014 were far from perfect, but in the end they were a very good thing for winter sports – and for Mount Hood’s reputation as a key training location for elite skiers and snowboarders.
At least 12 Olympic athletes (11 Americans and one “Russian”) with past or ongoing connections to Mount Hood earned a spot on an Olympic podium.
Here’s a list of some of the super-shredders who won Olympic hardware, and how they are connected to Mount Hood.
1. Sage Kotsenburg introduced the global masses to the art of slopestyle snowboarding and won the first gold medal of the 2014 Olympics. Sage has done his share of summer shredding on Mount Hood with both High Cascade Snowboard Camp (where he and his Lick the Cat crew have earned a Signature Session) and Windells Camp. He is also sponsored by Oregon-based Nike Snowboarding.
2. The one and only Julia Mancuso became the most decorated female alpine racer in U.S. history by winning bronze in the super combined in Russia. Julia was shredding Hood back when she was just another nine-year-old in a puffy coat at the Mt. Hood Summer Ski Camp.
3. Jamie Anderson joined Kotsenburg in winning snowboarding slopestyle gold with super-smooth style in a challenging course. Jamie co-hosted signature sessions at High Cascade Snowboard Camp from 2009 to 2012 and is scheduled to host another one this summer. She is also a former camper and visiting athlete for Windells Camp on Mount Hood. One of her first big slopestyle victories was at the Abominable Snow Jam on Mount Hood in 2006.
4. Ted Ligety continued his domination in giant slalom racing by winning gold in Russia, his second Olympic gold medal. Ligety first attended Mt. Hood Summer Ski Camps in 1996 at the age of nine, and he helps run a summer racing camp on Mount Hood.
5. The 18-year-old racing sensation Mikaela Shiffrin powered through some serious pressure to become the youngest Olympic slalom champion in history. She’s from Colorado and New Hampshire but she did some summer training on Mount Hood along the way too, as this YouTube video attests. After winning her first gold medal in 2014, she calmly announced that her goal in 2018 will be to win all five, downhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom, and super-combined.
6. Slopestyle superstar Nick Goepper moved from Indiana to Oregon to train on Mount Hood with Windells Academy, where a Windells employee became his legal guardian to facilitate training and travel. Goepper won a bronze medal in Russia as part of a clean American sweep of the podium in the Olympic debut of slopestyle skiing.
Last modified: February 24, 2014
