Joining the Next Turn this week is sixteen year World Cup veteran Ilka Štuhec. A three-time Junior World Champion (in three different disciplines) and two-time Downhill World Champion from Slovenia, Štuhec has battled multiple injuries and has managed to claw her way back to fighting shape, time after time. She’s stood on the top step of the podium twice this season, a full four years since her last win. In this honest conversation, Štuhec talks about what she needed to change both in herself and in her team as she’s evolved and also speaks to equipment and sponsor changes as well. Her most re ..read more

Greek-American alpine athlete AJ Ginnis joins The Next Turn this week along with his coaches (and former athletes themselves) Sandy Vietze and Gaby Coulet. Ginnis, who skied for the US for seven years before making the decision to move to the Greek team, discusses the impetus for the switch and the resulting impact on sponsorship, funding, and his coaching team. Ginnis discusses his confidence, along with what is working for him and what he feels like he needs to work on. The trio cover their tactics, AJ’s first World Cup podium, his World Championships medal and yes, they also address “the st ..read more

The Next Turn is lucky enough to be joined by Italian powerhouse Federica Brignone this week, along with her brother and coach, Davide. We had the opportunity to speak with Fede early in the season, before she’d found her groove, and part of this conversation revolves around what’s changed for her since then, as she’s clearly hit her stride and has been having an incredibly successful season. In this interview Brignone talks about patience in finding what she describes as “the feeling” again. Davide is a former ski racer himself, and as a supporting member of Fede’s coaching staff, he has valu ..read more

We are joined this week by Kathy Okoniewski and Pierre Ruel, two coaching professionals who have spent the majority of their careers working with high-level athletes, as well as coaching coaches. In this conversation they talk about the characteristics of a good coach, as well as the changing job description that many ski coaches are experiencing. They talk about adaptability, interacting with parents, and moonlighting as sports psychologists. They also delve into the importance of evolving and continuing to hone one’s coaching skills. As always, hosts Martin, Cara and Jeff share their “SWIX T ..read more

In part two of our athlete parents series, we are joined this week by three fathers of established World Cup athletes, Angus Crawford (Jack and Candace Crawford), Hugh Merryweather (Alice Merryweather) and Mark Moltzan (Paula Moltzan). These three experienced “World Cup Dads” share valuable insight, including how they handle the highs and the lows of ski racing, the often prohibitive cost of the sport, the critical importance of training groups, the nuances of parental involvement, the ins and outs of qualifying criteria, and overall athlete mental health. As always, hosts Martin, Cara and Jef ..read more

U.S. Ski & Snowboard Chief of Sport, Anouk Patty, joins The Next Turn for a fascinating discussion about the organization’s development initiatives, the process of talent identification, and both the certification and education process for everyone from clubs, to coaches, to high performance athletes. Along with being a world-class ski racer, Patty has worked in corporate America, during which time she got her MBA at Harvard Business School. She’s been able to leverage her experience in the financial and tech industries in her current role, and this interview explores the various ways in w ..read more

America’s Brian McLaughlin and Belgium’s Sam Maes have taken two different paths to the World Cup, but both were facilitated by Global Racing, an organization based in Austria that helps support and develop world-class ski racers. In this conversation we speak with Global Racing Coach Paul Epstein, as well as McLaughlin and Maes –both of whom scored multiple World Cup points this season– and learn about advantages and disadvantages of being part of an independent team. With eight different nations represented on the Global Racing Team, Epstein explains the logistics of communicating with each ..read more

It’s always a pleasure to talk to Switzerland’s Michelle Gisin, and we were thrilled to have her back on The Next Turn. Gisin, a rare four-event skier, won back-to-back gold medals in the Alpine Combined event at the last two Olympics, a Bronze medal in Super G at the Beijing Olympics, has won medals at the World Championships, and she has World Cup podiums in every discipline. However this season, Gisin hasn’t yet produced the results we’re used to seeing from her, and she’s very open about her struggles, shedding light on her long and arduous recovery from mononucleosis, her efforts to find ..read more

The Next Turn is shifting gears somewhat this week, giving the microphone to three insightful women, all of whom are mothers to World Cup athletes. Joanne Gray (mom of Canada’s Cassidy Gray), Barbara Ann Cochran (mom of America’s Ryan Cochran-Siegle), and Karen Monsén (mom of Sweden’s Felix Monsén) speak to us about the role of the parent vs. the role of a coach and illuminate the life lessons that can be learned through ski racing. They discuss how important it is for an athlete to identify as more than just a ski racer, as well as the anxiety that comes along with being the parent of a child ..read more

In the two years since we first spoke with him, American World Cup athlete Ryan Cochran-Siegle has added a few accolades to his resume— namely a silver medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. We connected with him and learned about the ups and downs of his recent equipment change, as well as his return to racing after a minor spine fracture sustained in Kitzbuhel. RCS talks through his current focus in training when it comes to technique and fundamentals and he also speaks of the impact of confidence on performance. He looks ahead to the races still to come this season, giving deep insight into hi ..read more