Under 23 Questions with Kelsey Phinney

In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at this week’s International Ski Federation (FIS) 2017 USANA Nordic Junior World Championships and U23 Cross Country World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 22-year-old Kelsey Phinney, of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team, who’s representing the U.S. at her second U23 Worlds. On Tuesday, the U23 championships begin with classic sprints.

***

“My full name is Kelsey Phinney, but you can call me Kelsey. I was born in Boulder, Colo., raised in Boulder, and one thing you should know about my hometown is that even though it’s basically a city, you still can run into bears and mountain lions on the trails.

I started cross-country skiing when I was eight, thanks to my dad bribing me with snickers and hot chocolate. I currently train in Ketchum, Idaho, with SVSEF Gold Team.

If I’m not skiing, you might find me working on my pen and ink drawings and listening to the ‘Hamilton’ soundtrack. If I had to pick a favorite book, it would be ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho.

One of the things I’m most excited about for U23/Junior Worlds at Soldier Hollow is that it’s in America!! One race I’m especially targeting there is the classic sprint.

The best advice anyone ever gave me about skiing or racing was that a happy skier is a fast skier. One of the best race memories I have is doing the Superwoman pose with the other girls at the start of the A-final at Spring Series in Sun Valley (and then subsequently getting my first Supertour podium).

If I could meet one World Cup skier, it would be Stina Nilsson.

I currently am a professional skier, but I’ll probably go back to school after to keep studying something related to neuroscience.

I graduated from school last May so I finally don’t have to worry about what my professors think about my extended absences!