Ski Racing - November 21, 2011

Mitch Prevot races alpine as a J4…

MARGIE PREVOT; FLYINGPOINTROAD.COM

Today, whether due to injury or curiosity, NCAA athletes accustomed to gravity assistance in alpine continue to make the switch to cross country skiing with impressive success. Caitlin Curran, a senior at UVM who earned EISA all-East second-team honors last season with four top- 10 carnival results, made the medically suggested decision to replace alpine racing with nordic during the spring of her junior year of high school.

“I was in an appointment with Dr. Mel Boynton for probably the fifteenth time after multiple knee injuries and a series of frustrat-
ing winters, and he told me I had [irreparable] damage,” says Curran. “He was trying to be optimistic, but he said that if I wanted
to be able to still walk when I was 30, I couldn’t continue [to race alpine].”
Although her older brother, Tim, was an alpine member of the USST and is currently an alpine coach at the Green Mountain Val-
ley School, Curran had a natural affinity for endurance sports. She enjoyed running, biking, and hiking more than a typical alpine
athlete, and even scored a 2008 victory at the USA Cycling mountain bike national championships in the expert class. Curran
says she considers herself lucky to have made the switch to cross country in order to continue ski racing. “My parents are really
active nordic skiers, and I had done it when I was little,” she says. “I didn’t like it nearly as much as alpine skiing, which is why I
That background, however, did not deliver instant success, nor did the switch en-
sure freedom from injury. In her first nordic race in Canada during her senior year
of high school, Curran crashed and broke her thumb, requiring surgery and a cast,
which meant she could only ski with one pole for a good portion of that winter.
Curran’s decision to change disciplines also influenced one of her high school
classmates, Mitch Prevot. When Curran made the switch, Prevot wondered if al-
pine racing was the right sport for his talents. While at Burke Mountain Academy,
he decided to attend a cross country conditioning camp instead of following the
alpine team to Austria. “When I was really little, my family went alpine skiing in the
morning, but then we’d come off the mountain in the afternoon, still in our GS suits,
and we’d all go nordic skiing,” says Prevot. “In high school, I started to feel more
drawn to the nordic culture. Physically, I’m more set to be a nordic skier than an
alpiner.”
Prevot, a freshman on the Williams College nordic team, believes getting a later
start than most of his competition was actually beneficial. “I never developed bad
technical habits that needed to be changed that people who start younger usually
have,” he says. Last winter, Prevot posted season-best seventh and 12th-place
results in Eastern Cup races and finished in the top half of the field at the UVM
Carnival. He hopes to make the carnival team at Williams this winter.