Winter Vinecki, US Olympic aerial skier, was the featured runner

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  • Vinecki started racing triathlons at the age of 5 and learned to ski with his grandfather, a ski instructor in Michigan.
  • At 13, she moved to Utah to train as a world-class aerial skier
  • Olympian Emily Cook introduced Vinecki to the air after the two met at an awards banquet in New York

Part of USA TODAY’s 10 to watch series featuring some of America’s top athletes competing at the Beijing Olympics

Just over a decade ago, a 12-year-old triathlete named Winter Vinecki took to the stage in New York City to accept an award from the Women’s Sports Foundation. Billie Jean King, Michelle Kwan and Maya Moore were among the iconic female sports personalities in the audience that night. Annika Sorenstam presented the award.

If Vinecki was nervous, she certainly didn’t show it, one attendee said.

“She had the whole room riveted. In tears. And behind her, cheering her on,” Emily Cook recalled.

It was after this 2011 event that Cook, an Olympic freestyle skier, first showed up at Vinecki — and first introduced the pre-teen triathlete to a skiing discipline called jumps. It was a chance encounter that essentially changed the course of Vinecki’s life.

“There it is,” Cook said, “here it is.”

Today, Vinecki is an Olympian in the ski event she discovered almost by accident all those years ago. Now 23, she is one of four women who will represent Team USA in aerial skiing at the 2022 Winter Olympics, with competition in her event beginning Feb. 13. (She could also be selected for the mixed air test). team, which competes on February 10.)

According to Olympia.org, she will also be the first athlete named “Winter” to compete in the Winter Games.

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For Vinecki, becoming an Olympian is just the last step in a busy and versatile life. He has featured marathons on every continent with his mother, speaking engagements, a non-profit organization in her name, a move away from home, World Cup podiums, distance school work and multiple serious injuries. – including a broken face.

“I’m really looking forward to standing on top of that hill and knowing that I’ve done the work I needed to do to get there, regardless of other circumstances,” Vinecki said in a January interview. .

“I’m just excited to do what I do best: go out there and do some jumps and twists.”

A big move

Vinecki wasn’t always good at flips and twists, mind you. While stunts are at the heart of the jumps, in which athletes take off from a ramp and 40 feet in the air, it didn’t come naturally to him at first.

“I think the most I’ve done is maybe a front flip or a back flip on a backyard trampoline, with my mom holding the back of my shirt,” she said.

Vinecki grew up about three hours north of Detroit in the small town of Gaylord, Michigan. She started running in triathlons at age 5 and learned to ski with her grandfather, a ski instructor at a nearby seaside resort.

Then, at age 9, her life began to change. Vinecki lost his father, Michael, to an aggressive form of prostate cancer. She decided to found a nonprofit organization in his memory, Team Winter, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Prostate Cancer Foundation. The family moved to Oregon. And then, in the middle of it all, Vinecki met Cook.

Impressed by Vinecki’s passion and courage during a speech she gave at the Women’s Sports Foundation event, Cook approached the 12-year-old and her mother, Dawn Estelle, after the ceremony to to present oneself. She told them that while Vinecki liked regular skiing, she might also enjoy another discipline of the sport: jumps.

“I was like, ‘I don’t even know what that is,'” Vinecki said, “‘but of course I’m willing to try it.'”

Cook invited Vinecki to stay with her in Park City, Utah the following summer and try jumping off ramps into a pool of water. (“How could I say no?” Vinecki said.) She quickly found herself drawn to the feeling of flying, even over mini-jumps, getting only a foot or two of air.

“She was definitely nervous, but Winter always had this quiet determination,” Cook said. “She had that serious face on her…and did it.”

Soon after, Vinecki made up her mind: she wanted to leave her family, move to Utah, and start training to be a world-class aerial skier. It was a major life decision, especially for a 13-year-old. But that didn’t surprise her mother.

“It never even crossed my mind not to let her go, because I knew when she was very young that the Olympics were in her sights,” Estelle said. “So when this opportunity came up, it wasn’t even a second thought. It was ‘OK, we just need to find someone to live with.'”

Vinecki first stayed with trainers, then with a host family she had met during her triathlon races. His lifestyle soon began to revolve around training. She swapped traditional education for online classes through Stanford University from eighth grade, for example, and missed many normal teenage milestones — while adding some of her own.

In 2013, Vinecki set a world record by becoming the youngest runner to complete a marathon on all seven continents, with the last race taking place in Athens before her 15th birthday.

“She’s a perfectionist,” Estelle said. “And she’s good at a lot of things. I don’t know a lot of people who can do everything like her.”

“I literally bumped myself”

However, leaving home at 13 wasn’t always easy.

Vinecki said her first year at Park City was new and exciting, but by second year she was dealing with bouts of homesickness. She spent hours every day on FaceTime with her brothers, trying to stay connected. But on a trip home, she still wondered if the solitary nature of the training was worth it.

“I remember crying in my closet with my mom,” she said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can go back.’ ”

Estelle encouraged her to try one more time, to stay a week and see how she felt. Vinecki never looked back. At 16, she was named to the United States Ski Team. And at 18, she had won a silver medal at the world junior championships.

“What I saw in her was a very determined young woman who could achieve anything she wanted,” said Cook, who then coached Vinecki from 2017 to 2019.

“Our sport is not fast. … It’s a lot of hours. It’s a lot of planning and sticking to the plan. It’s a lot of going up and down stairs and jump after jump after jump. is a very exhausting process.”

For Vinecki, everything had to culminate at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang. But then injuries hit.

In August 2017, Vinecki fractured the right side of her face while jumping into a swimming pool near the end of her summer training schedule. She was attempting another trick when her hands strayed too far from her body, crashing into the water right in front of her face. “I literally punched myself in the face,” she explained.

Vinecki had two titanium plates installed and was back jumping within weeks. A month away from Pyeongchang, she said she still had a strong chance of making the Olympic team, before a torn anterior cruciate ligament in competition put an end to that dream. She watched the 2018 Games from her couch in Park City with her knee wrapped in ice.

“There were a lot of tears,” Estelle said.

Vinecki returned to competition the following winter, with 2022 already in sight. She had two normal seasons of training and competition before COVID-19 hit.

“It’s tough because you have all these expectations of what your first Olympics will be. And now it’s none of that,” Vinecki said.

Cook, however, thinks if anyone can handle the uncertainty and stress of the Olympics during a global pandemic, it’s Vinecki – the girl who captivated a hall of sports legends before her 13th birthday.

“His focus is really unwavering,” Cook said. “Everyone on a different day can do the best jump in the world. … It has to be done at the right time. And what she brings is that ability to focus on all the challenges she faces this that day, on that hill.”

Contact Tom Schad at [email protected] or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.

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