CLARK: Recovered for ’07.
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At 29, Clark has built an impressive résumé of skiing accomplishments: three-time Olympian, World Cup and World Championship winner, and the only American to win four consecutive US downhill championships.
Clark grew up in Raymond, Maine. She was skiing by age three and racing at seven. Known for her speed as a downhill racer, she attended Carabasset Valley Academy (CVA), a small boarding and day school near the Sugarloaf ski resort. With a curriculum devoted to scholar-athletes who spend serious time on the slopes, CVA counts world-class ski and snowboard instructors among its staff. The school’s Web site touts its alumni victories by Clark, Bode Miller, and Seth Wescott the way other prep schools would promote their National Merit finalists.
Although an Olympic medal has eluded Clark in her three trips to the big stage, the fact that she was even competing in the most recent games was a small victory on its own. She spent much of the 2004 season recovering from a devastating crash in Austria, where she suffered multiple injuries, including a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament, which connects thighbone to shinbone) that required a prolonged rehab. An infection following knee surgery in 2005 put Clark in the hospital, but she still performed well enough last season to make it to Torino, where she finished 14th in the Super-G. Clark continues to ski at a top level and is on the roster for the 2007 US Alpine team.
Bode Miller
MILLER: Speed above all.
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There’s little about this New Hampshire native that hasn’t been scrutinized and built up to the stuff of legend — his revolutionary choice to use parabolic skis; his barreling slope style that lands him in the disqualification column almost as frequently as on the winners’ podium; the infamous 60 Minutes interview in which he alluded to being hung-over on the slopes, followed by the requisite apology that seemed so uncharacteristic of someone used to unapologetically speaking his mind. It all set the stage for Miller to be one of the most watched American athletes in Torino in 2006, and his finish without a medal had arm-chair alpine experts smugly thanking themselves that they wouldn’t have to watch another sappy NBC montage.
He has all of the trappings of a superstar — endorsements, a Sirius radio slot (The Bode Show), and a charity ski-and-golf tournament called Bodefest. But Miller maintains a laid-back persona, a product of living with hippie parents on a 500-acre property in the woods of Easton Valley, near Franconia, without electricity or running water.
Miller was on skis at age three and a regular at Cannon Mountain before attending Carabasset Valley Academy near Sugarloaf. He began competing competitively when he was 11, and over the years, gained a reputation as an innovator who prioritized speed over technique.
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Recent disappointing Olympic finish aside, Miller has his two silver medals from the 2002 Olympics, a 2004–2005 World Cup title, and countless other accolades. He may have a reputation for being laid back, but he doesn’t appear to be slowing down. He has publicly proclaimed his goal of breaking Hermann Maier’s record of 13 World Cup victories in a World Cup season. Since this World Cup may be the last for the 29 year old, Alpine buffs or even the casually curious may want to keep their eyes peeled to the weekend TV schedule for a chance to see this one-of-a-kind new England native barrel down the race slope.
Seth Wescott
WESCOTT: Trains in tough conditions.
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Wescott probably said it best himself when he likened snowboardcross to NASCAR racing. Thrilling, fast, and physically grueling in a way that resembles a roller derby more than a race down a mountain, the event pits four racers against each other on a narrow course peppered with jumps and sharp curves. Snowboardcross made its debut in the 2006 Winter Olympics, and Seth Wescott was crowned its first gold medalist after narrowly edging out Slovakia’s Radoslav Zidek.
For this 29-year-old native of Farmington, Maine, Olympic success was a long time coming. He had tried to make the team in both 1998 and 2002 as a half-pipe competitor, but in both instances he was edged out by more dominant stars such as Ross Powers and Danny Kass. He finally got his chance when the Olympics committee announced, in 2003, that snowboardcross would be added as an event for the 2006 games.
Wescott attended Carabasset Valley Academy for his last year of high school, and credits competing at Sugarloaf with preparing him for snowboardcross courses around the world. “It has a steep consistent fall line that can rival most anything in the country,” he says via e-mail. “[I]t teaches you to be really good in hard conditions which, when you end up on the World Cup, is what you are going to face a lot of the time.”