Ski Racing - February 13, 2012

FREESTYLE
World Cup

But it’s not as if Wonder Woman is left filing her nails without any Cheetah to battle; there
are plenty of gold-hungry young “villains” dying to knock Kearney out of her (by now custom
tailored?) yellow leader’s bib.
One such budding foe is Kearney’s teammate Heather McPhie, who’s been getting com-
fortable on the World Cup podium since earning her first World Cup win, also in Deer Valley,
two years ago.
“I really want to beat Hannah, so I like every experience I have to duel her and just keep
getting better and faster against her,” said McPhie after the dual moguls contest. “I’m having
so much fun pushing the sport and doing that D-spin in every single run and getting experi-
ence all the time. I’m knocking on the door to beat Hannah one of these days soon.”
McPhie, perhaps flying on her new wings after becoming the first moguls skier ever to sign
with Red Bull (a day before competition began in Deer Valley), secured a silver medal in the
singles contest and a bronze in the duals.
“I know a lot of people want to beat me, I understand that, I am a competitor as well,” said
Kearney, who has been perfecting a still-not-snow-ready back full during the off season at
her training base in Lake Placid. “Maybe people feel like they are closing in, but I’m not just
coasting along waiting till someone beats me. I’m going to challenge them and push my ski-
ing, too.”
When asked if her Olympic gold medal or the heavy chain of World Cup wins hangs heavi-
est around her well-decorated neck, Kearney awarded a tie.
“Overall in the scheme of my life, the consistency means more,” she said. “I think part of the
reason that I am skiing consistently now is that it became my focus after winning the gold
medal. Emotionally [the gold medal] means a little more; it has a way of sort of stirring emo-
tion in me when I think about it.”
What else is there to accomplish? “There is always something that I feel like I can improve
on and it makes me really excited to wake up in the morning and go skiing again,” said Ke-
arney. “I can clean up that exit, I can get a better grab; I can ski faster. There are a million
things about moguls skiing to improve upon, which makes it so fun and difficult.”
Even after she swept the wins on home snow in Deer Valley, workaholic Kearney had to be
talked into skipping a late night training session to celebrate. “We actually had a plan to go
to the gym tonight,” she said, “but I think that is going to be put on hold until tomorrow.”
Kearney is proving she has much more than slope smarts now, too. She said that late
spring, usually reserved for downtime, brought a “different kind of stress” in 2011. “I went to
school for the first time in seven years,” said Kearney of her Dartmouth studies. “Instead of
just relaxing, I wasn’t physically straining myself but I was plenty stressed but I survived. I
am planning on going back.”