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USST D-team

Q&A with New Faces on the U.S. Ski Team: Sammy Smith

U.S. Ski & Snowboard recently announced its U.S. Ski Team nominations for the 2022-23 season. Of the 22 athletes named to the team this season, six were not on the previous year’s roster, either newly named or renamed: Michael Earnhart, Walker Hall, Zak Ketterson, Will Koch, Finn O’Connell, and Sammy Smith. To help fans get to know these new(er) faces, FasterSkier is doing a series of interviews, providing insights into the factors that have contributed...

Coach Greta Anderson and the USST D-Team Try to Take Over the World

This summer, the U.S. Ski Team announced that it had hired Greta Anderson as the new Development Team Coach. FasterSkier caught up with Anderson on the afternoon of the official announcement to delve deeper into her coaching philosophy, precise job description, and only sort of tongue-in-cheek plans for world domination. Anderson’s hire was widely praised by both current and former athletes. Here’s Luke Jager, who’s known Anderson for nearly a decade starting in Alaska junior...

Breaking New Ground: Noel Keeffe

This article was originally published on November 11, 2019 in Steamboat Magazine. It is reposted with permission. By: Tiia Libin Being a “first-ever” is rare, especially in a town filled with Olympians. Noel Keeffe is one of them. Born and raised in Steamboat Springs, Keeffe is the first Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club cross-country athlete to be named to the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team. “Our coaches continually remind us that our life as a student...

Torchia on the Ups, Downs and All He’s Learned Since His First USST Nomination

Two summers ago, with just five miles left of the Marquette Trails Fest 30-mile mountain bike race, all Ian Torchia could hear in his head was the voice of Krystof Kopal, his Northern Michigan University (NMU) teammate, snidely saying, “You drop out again?” Fifteen minutes earlier, Torchia had careened into a tree. After dusting himself off, he remounted his bike, but not before noticing his left wrist was badly injured. For a moment, Torchia considered...

Kaeding on Shepherding the U.S. D-Team and Crunching Data

The newest hire to the U.S. Ski Team (USST) coaching ranks is 34-year-old Gus Kaeding. Kaeding is a newly minted MBA as of 2017 and is fresh off a gig with the U.S. Olympic Committee based out of Colorado Springs. Kaeding was a junior skier at the Stratton Mountain School (SMS), skied collegiately at Northern Michigan University, and coached at Central Cross Country and went on to become head coach of the SMST2 Team prior...