603Podcast with Dan Egan
603podcast explores the people, places and things that create the culture of New Hampshire. From the Great North Woods to the peaks and valleys of White Mountains, in and around the Lakes, on and off the Seacoast, throughout the Merrimack the Monadnock Regions, to the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee area. This podcast educates, motivates and discovers the stories that shape the "Granite State" and its impact on the country and the world.
Hosted by extreme sports pioneer Dan Egan, you’ll hear inspiring in-depth stories, from our featured guests that are the heartbeat of the Granite State through conversationally discussions with New Hampshire’s most notable, need to know folks and characters make New Hampshire truly special place.
603Podcast with Dan Egan
Hannah Kearney: The Granite State's Mogul Queen
Hannah Kearney's gold medal-winning run at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics wasn't just a display of athletic brilliance—it was the culmination of a journey marked by failure, resilience, and transformation. As the New Hampshire local tells host Dan Egan, her path to Olympic glory started in the most humble circumstances: skiing Jay Peak's challenging glades while living in a house with no electricity or running water.
The mogul skiing legend reveals how her early exposure to freestyle came through ballet skiing at the Dartmouth Skiway—a discipline requiring intricate pole flips and choreographed routines performed to music. Under the mentorship of Nick and Suszi Preston at Waterville Valley, Kearney developed not just as an athlete but as a person. "They were so much more than ski coaches," she reflects, describing how their belief in her potential and unwavering dedication created a family-like environment that nurtured champions.
Particularly fascinating is Kearney's candid discussion of her 2006 Olympic disappointment, where poor preparation and overwhelming pressure led to early elimination. This failure, combined with a subsequent injury, became the catalyst for her complete reinvention as an athlete—incorporating serious strength training, meticulous preparation, and a newfound gratitude for her sport. When she stood atop the course in Vancouver four years later amid wind and rain, these experiences gave her the edge needed to claim gold.
Today, Kearney continues contributing to the sport she loves as a development officer for the US Ski and Snowboard Foundation, NBC commentator, and strength coach. Her iconic pigtail braids—originally a practical solution for securing her helmet—have become a symbol emulated by young skiers worldwide. As she prepares for induction into the US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, Kearney's story reminds us that sometimes our greatest setbacks contain the seeds of our future success.
Listen to the full episode to hear more on Hannah Kearney.
For more information about the 603podcast visit 603podcast.com
Welcome back to Season 2 of the 603 Podcast, where we cover all things New Hampshire, from true crime and covered bridges to epic mountain marathons. We're excited to share another season of unique perspectives from across the Granite State with you. I'm your host, dan Egan, and this is the 603 Podcast. The 603 Podcast is sponsored by Mad River Coffee, celebrating 20 years of roasting coffee, legendary egg sandwiches, meals to go and live music right off of exit 28 on.
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Dan Egan:This episode of the 603 Podcast, our guest is a New Hampshire native, hannah Carney, one of the most leading mogul skiers of all time. Hannah won the gold in Vancouver in 2010. She backed it up with a bronze in Sochi, russia, in 2014. She's a legend in the sport. She has multiple world championship medals and multiple world titles. She's a mentor to many and one of my good friends. Let's welcome Hannah Carney to the 603 podcast. Hannah, how are you doing today?
Hannah Kearney:I'm doing really well. Thanks for having me.
Dan Egan:You bet Great to see you, and it's been fun to, of course, get to know you over the years and watch your career. And just tell us a little bit about what you're doing these days. I hear you're a mom.
Hannah Kearney:Yeah, that's the main thing. Anyone who has been a parent knows that takes up most of your time, but that doesn't look as impressive on a resume. So I'm also working for the US Ski and Snowboard Foundation on a resume. So I'm also working for the US Ski and Snowboard Foundation. So as a development officer, they've done a really cool job of bringing back former athletes to work for the organization, tell their stories and help fundraise for the current athletes. And because that's a part-time position and, god forbid, I have any downtime, I also dabble in some commentary for NBC when the World Cups are in the United States, which is always fun, and I get to do world championships coming up at the end of the month as well, and what's it? Oh, and then I work as a strength and conditioning coach and of course, I end up working mostly with mobile skiers, but not that's not a rule.
Dan Egan:Great job on the commentary. I'm glad you brought that up. People have really enjoyed your commentary. Did that come natural to you? How did you kind of sort it out, calling it from a booth actually?
Hannah Kearney:Yeah, I didn't know that that's what I was getting into when I was asked. I mean, it's always a treat to be able to talk about a sport you love and I've continued to follow it because I've trained some of the athletes and because I work for the organization, so it was sort of a perfect fit. I had to do a like trial fake mock broadcast of the past Olympics as my audition and that was really nerve wracking. But like anything I do in my life, the way that I do it is prepare, prepare, prepare. So I spend so much time preparing and then I never get around to getting to use all my notes and research and Excel spreadsheets I've created about the athletes different athletes, results but it's, it's really fun and the dream job is getting invited to the Olympics. So that's fingers crossed for next February.
Dan Egan:The job there is to build excitement for the run right in real time, and so are you calling it live.
Hannah Kearney:as you see it, For the most part, we are typically calling it live, but I had my first very unusual experience of calling a completely edited down show an hour and a half after the Deer Valley World Cup ended. So it's a night event, and it ended at 930 at night approximately, and so we didn't start until 1030 at night, and that is not when my brain works the best. So and I already knew the results, it was a really weird experience, but you have to fake it. You have to act like you're finding out for the first time too. So I'm also working on my acting, I suppose, in that world, which I didn't expect to.
Dan Egan:Of course, deer Valley is iconic now for the mogul run and for anybody who hasn't seen this, it's a very intimidating run. I've stood on top of it, I've looked down at it. It's steep, the ruts are big, the bumps are huge and it's really a mainstay now in mogul skiing and US is having a lot of success. Tell us about the past event in Deer Valley and what was it like? And again, the women continue to dominate for the US.
Hannah Kearney:Yeah, in some ways I feel bad for our men's team. Just because the women are so strong, they get all the attention. But, like the slogan, now, everyone watches women's sports. Our US women's model team is so strong there Right now. Jalen Koff is about to secure all of the crystal globes that they give out in mogul skiing. So that's single moguls, dual moguls and then the overall title, which is just everything the whole season combined. And then Tess Johnson just had a win. Olivia Giaccio has been on the podium several times this year, unfortunately injured now. So basically we have four or five American women that could be on the podium at any given day. They have not had the elusive sweep that they'll be looking for next season. I mean, that would be an Olympic story, that's for sure. I don't want to put too much pressure on them. The hardest thing right now for those women is making the Olympic team. If you have six American women competing on the World Cup Tour, only four get to go to the Olympic Games, and they're going to be. Those six will be all ranked in the top 10 in the world. So that's kind of devastating, but that's the way the Olympic rules work and we're all about representing all the countries. You can argue either way whether that's the best thing for the sport, but it'll be a really competitive season.
Hannah Kearney:Going back to Deer Valley, the Americans always ski well there. I mean, the crowd does make a difference. You will be probably not shocked to learn that most places most skiers compete there's not a huge audience cheering them on. So the crowd that comes out of Deer Valley is usually larger than the Olympic crowd. It truly is like an Olympic test event in the sense that that excitement and energy that's there is real. And because everyone's American in the crowd, the Americans have a little advantage there and you have all the perks of the Center of Excellence, which is the ski team's headquarters are right here in Park City. So the athletes have access to everything they could possibly need when competing here, whether it's like supplemental oxygen, a chef cooking them lunch, the physical therapist available before training, during training, after training literally anything they need.
Hannah Kearney:That week they have, whereas when they're in Kazakhstan, like they were last week, that's probably not the case. They probably don't even have a gym. They're doing their warmup in the hallway. So that's the reason the Americans ski really well at Deer Valley and it is not just an American favorite. The other athletes on the World Cup Tour love it because it's such a it's a challenging course. It's not necessarily always fun to train because it's so hard, but that ambiance at night and the fact that the best skiers really are the ones that do well, I think, makes everyone respect the course and appreciate the venue for what it's done for the sport. Back to the 2002 Olympics and now looking forward to 2034, it will be the same venue where that the Olympics will be hosted there and they've also hosted multiple world championships. So it is, like you said, a mainstay in our sport and I hope it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
Dan Egan:I think the big story has to be Jalen Coff. I mean so consistent. They say she's one of the fastest women on the tour, if not the fastest on the tour. From your point of view, besides having the complete package, how do you break that down? What does she bring that the other girls can't beat?
Hannah Kearney:I mean for sure the speed, which in most things, actually not a very large percentage of the score. So you're looking at 20% of the score in duels. The way it breaks down it's actually less significant than that. It's about 14.9. I told you I did my, I did my, uh, studying. When it comes to the commentary, um.
Hannah Kearney:So it's not everything, but there is um an aesthetic that comes from being a fast skier that the judges, who are human beings, can't deny. It's this aggressive nature and they will deduct for someone who's skiing way slower than they're capable of in order to just have a nice rounded turn. That's not going to get a great score. So it's that balance of being on the edge and jalen has. When she was younger, she showed the kind of immaturity of being like well, I'm known for speed and just went fast all the time had a lot of mistakes. She, as an older and stronger, I think, both mentally and physically athlete, she's found this way of really minimizing mistakes and skiing incredibly fast too. So now there's just less to deduct, and when you're skiing that fast, her jumps have come a long way. She's increased her degree of difficulty. She was a little bit late to adding the multiple off-axis twists, but she's now right up there with everyone else as far as how hard her tricks are. So that is the whole package that you're talking about the turns, the speed and the turns really are. Who makes the fewest mistakes?
Hannah Kearney:Her success this year is, to me, is showing what a strong competitor she is. So it's one thing to ski well on the training days before the competition. It's another thing on those three competition runs when you're in the start gate all eyes on you None of this best of stuff from the free skiing world it's one run. None of this best of stuff from the free skiing world. It's one run, one mistake. Every round that you move on to, scores are wiped clean. So you have to be mentally strong and that, to me, is where she's showing a lot of leadership and maturity.
Hannah Kearney:It is to not take anything away from Jalen, but to educate viewers of the sport. There are a couple of strong skiers missing this year, so that doesn't mean Jalen can't beat them. It's just worth noting that she's going to have some competition in the defending gold medalist, jakara Anthony from Australia, who won all but two competitions last year and, I know, fueled Jalen's fire. You know getting second, being called silver, silver J, I mean winning a silver medal in the olympics is amazing. Getting second week after week on the world cup tour does get old. You want to constantly improve, and so um for her, this, these string of victories this year, is, I'm sure, satisfying. But she knows that jacarra will be coming back hungry too, and I think jalen is up for the challenge to go neck and neck with her.
Dan Egan:Amazing, of course. We're in the 603 with New Hampshire's original mogul star legend, hannah Carney, and I do, like the slight nod to the purity of the event, that it's not a best of, not your best run, it's the run of the moment in moguls that matters, and you've been there. Take us back to the early years. You're a Jay Peak skier. I don't think a lot of people know that.
Hannah Kearney:Yeah, that's true. It's because my parents met at McGill University in Montreal and so there were these, and my mom is Canadian, I'm actually half Canadian, so there were these Canadian ties. My dad's from Pennsylvania. They kind of ended up in Vermont as a sort of halfway point, but they still had friends in the uh and my grandparents were in Montreal, and so I don't know the full story, cause I was quite young but bought land in Newport, vermont, right on the Canadian border where Jay Peak is.
Hannah Kearney:So we grew up skiing there and it makes me sound older than I am but it was a house with no electricity or running water. Um, it was, which is really cool, cool. So my dad would wake up in the middle of the night and stoke the wood stove so that we weren't freezing when we woke up to then go ski and probably freeze more at Jay Peak. But my brother and I loved the glades there and I think indirectly that shaped my bump career, because who doesn't love well, a lot of people don't love navigating through the trees, but I did, and it created this love of obstacle courses that are mogul courses.
Dan Egan:You're tying it not just to the UN the famed mogul run there but also to the bumps in the trees.
Hannah Kearney:Yep.
Dan Egan:The move to Waterville Valley. How did that come about?
Hannah Kearney:The short answer is ballet skiing. The short answer is ballet skiing. Jp did not have a freestyle program, but there were some freestyle programs closer to Norwich, vermont, which was my hometown. Killington, for example, was closer than Waterville Valley, but I had been introduced to freestyle skiing through the Ford Sayre program at the Dartmouth Skiway. And so on Wednesday afternoons after school which I can't like figure out the math on this, because we got out of school at two, I think the mountain closed at four. It took about 25 minutes to get there. So that's pretty minimal amount of training once a week for 90 minutes maybe, but that's how I was exposed to freestyle and I loved it.
Hannah Kearney:Every Wednesday I was really excited to go there and do freestyle, but at that point most of what we were doing was ballet skiing so long poles, short skis, spins and twists and pole flips eventually and we did mostly did that because there weren't a lot of moguls at the Dartmouth skiway and you only need a bunny hill to practice your 360s and pirouettes and Hillary spins. And so my mom had a gymnastics background and she actually did it with me the first year because she had to drive me there anyway. I think I was only in first grade and it was only 90 minutes. So she did it with me and we loved it. I loved the ballet component, which is funny because like I didn't like dancing or anything girly, but I loved ballet skiing. It's very acrobatic. Bring it back.
Hannah Kearney:I was not the first person to go throughauer program and then want more than 90 minutes a week. And Nori Lufer was a freestyle skier who had come through the program before me, who had ended up at Waterville Valley. She was probably seven or eight years older than me. She eventually went on to make the United States ski team for ballet skiing but she had recommended Waterville and so I think one Christmas vacation week I went over there and I was probably only eight years old to meet the Preston family, see what the BBTS program was all about. I joined in, I skied with Nick and I sort of observed I hadn't fully committed yet and I hooked on both Waterville and competition.
Dan Egan:What's your early memories of a ballet contest? How old were you and what did you throw? Do you remember what you might have thrown as a little girl?
Hannah Kearney:Well, getting the pole flip was like what tipped you from, like you weren't going to move up. There was the B circuit for the little kids and then the A circuit. I don't, I think it's still broken up that way Maybe I'd be called that and like the only way you're going to get invited up to A is if you had a pole flip. And I distinctly remember learning the pole flip during February vacation vacation. I was a weekend skier so, like, all my big breakthrough and trading moments happened during school vacations when I had more than two days in a row to practice, including, like, making the US ski team basically happened at a February vacation camp. But yeah, I learned this pole flip when I was probably 11, maybe 12. Cause I moved up days, I think, when I was 12, so I was probably 11,.
Hannah Kearney:Um, learning a pole flip, but my first runs. I always went to my mom's old gymnastics gym and picked out, um, like gymnastics cassette tapes of the music that people were using for their floor routines. Um, but I, I did. Uh, what's the mashed potatoes? Do the twist? That was one of my ballet songs. Um, some jock jams were what was some of my ballet songs, which became acro skiing, um, wow, yeah, uh, being boxed no one can see my air quotes. But being boxed, which is when your teammate or your coach or your parent held your boom box with the cassette tape in it, press, play and ski behind you in a snowplow as you practice your run down the slopes and once again, bring that ballet skiing. What good fun. What a really good spring activity. Not as fun in January.
Dan Egan:You mentioned Nick and, of course, Susie Preston. Just talk about those two as influences on your career and how they inspired you.
Hannah Kearney:They were so much more than ski coaches. They're, to this day, family, and I don't think I'm the only person that feels that way. It's not like I just happen to have a special relationship with them. They made every athlete that came to the program feel a part of something bigger than just a ski program, and that's important because the sport, you know, everyone retires from the sport competitively at one point or another, but you go on to be a person going through life. And I think the Prestons, the way they ran their camps, the way they had academy kids stay at the inn under their watch, it truly was a family thing. So it was Susie's birthday the other day and I was texting with her, even though I haven't seen them in months at this point in time. So that's, they had a huge influence on my life and, of course, my career.
Hannah Kearney:To answer your question more specifically, I think they both believed in me. That's how it felt from a very, very, very young age. They treated me as if I had potential, without adding any sort of pressure to my career, just held me to high expectations, allowed me to grow and thrive as an athlete and I was hard enough on myself. They didn't need to push me in that way. They just gave me opportunity through their camps, through the on-snow coaching. I mean their dedication. When I think about some of the weather days we had at Waterville and the ways they would find different ways for us to train. Even if none of the lifts were open because the winds were too strong or there had been an ice storm that knocked out the power, we would go back and jump on their trampolines. So we became better athletes through their dedication, because it would have been very easy to be like training's canceled. Today the mountain's not open, but nope, the present family was not. That's not their, that's not the way they operate. And in turn they ran a really strong program.
Dan Egan:We had the Prestons on the 603 not too long ago and they told this really great story about you when you were sort of training I think it was. You were training Black Whistler, black Home. One summer it was raining and the kids wanted to cancel training. You were not coaching, you were training yourself. Oh yeah, made everybody go train, I think in the rain. You want to recall that.
Hannah Kearney:I'd actually, it's funny I listened to the podcast and so I had forgotten about that story in that day. The year before it was the summer before the Olympics, so less than a year away from the Olympics I knew that at Cypress Mountain down near Vancouver there was a very good chance we were going to have foggy or less than ideal weather during my Olympic day. And so I was, and I'm a New Englander, so I was like it doesn't matter what the weather is, we Olympic day. And so I was, and I'm a new Englander, so I was like it doesn't matter what the weather is, we're going up there.
Hannah Kearney:I want to be prepared to train in anything, and Nick had helped me realize that attitude is a really big part of your ability to succeed in something. And so you know like, oh, no, I might not want to do my back flip, it's right. No, just like from practice, uh, being more confident than that and practice having a positive attitude. And I did that that year. So I worked with Nick um that summer. Yeah, I said I didn't want to coach Um, I wanted to train. So that I had the opportunity to work with Nick Um and he even helped me right up through the Olympics that season because I even though, uh, the USC team is based here in Utah, my whole career I was back East. It just made sense for me. I was around the people that I knew the best. I was around those challenging conditions that made me the athlete that I was. So I forfeited some say like quality of training during our breaks in the world cup season for instead that hardiness and the support system that I felt like I needed and it, it worked.
Dan Egan:And the Olympic run in 2010 in Vancouver. It indeed was raining. Bring us to the top of the run.
Hannah Kearney:Yeah, and I honestly think that gave me an edge again as a New Englander. It's like I've been there. When they give you the trash bag to wear with your lift ticket, like I, that's part of the norm of skiing in New England, unfortunately, and it doesn't affect you because you're used to it. So, yeah, I'd like. I'd like to thank the rain for my gold medal.
Dan Egan:And the umbrella. Who was holding the umbrella?
Hannah Kearney:Scott Rawls was holding the umbrella right above me. The wind is what I remember more than the rain. It was like the umbrella was shaking, the panels on the side of the course were flapping and we don't really get affected by the wind, but aesthetically it created quite a visual. Looking down in this course, it's not like a little kid how you visualize your Olympic experience as a skier. You're not like oh, I'm going to be soaking wet in the pouring rain. That's not what you imagine. But you got to be prepared for anything in a sport that's outside.
Dan Egan:In the moment performing, ending up with the gold in Vancouver in the finish area. What was it like?
Hannah Kearney:It's so hard to remember accurately, or at least to describe with words. It was more in in the moment of crossing the finish line. Before you have this pause, it's a judge sport, so it's not Alpine skiing where you know whether you've won. The second you cross you have to wait for the judges' scores to come in, and it was. I think it felt like forever, but it was like a very relaxed moment in the sense that I was happy, I had done everything I could have. I had skied a run that was better than my previous run. That was far better than the run I had skied four years before when I got third to last and I had performed. I was the last person down, so the event was over and I was just satisfied, um, at that moment, and I probably had a good feeling that I was going to win because my run was better than the run before and I was in first place. After that. Um, it was pretty fun having a teammate down there.
Hannah Kearney:Shannon Barky ended up with the bronze, so she was in the finish area Cause they only let the top three people stay. Um, in the finish area, because they only let the top three people stay in the finish area. So she gave me a big hug, I think, like my god. She like knocked my goggles off my helmet because she was really excited, probably more for herself at that moment, but it's just like who cares, you're all just so jazzed up with energy at that moment and I remember the scoreboard coming up and there's so many numbers on it that I didn't see the one ranking. I just kind of stared at it and that Shannon's reaction and helped me realize I just won a gold medal, which did not feel real.
Hannah Kearney:Didn't feel real that night. I think maybe the medal ceremony is where it like sinks in, and when the national anthem plays, that's when you're like I'm an Olympic champion, holy, what do you do now? That was the only goal I'd ever set for myself. So was that was, and that was 24 hours later because it was a night event. So I got 24 hours of just no sleep and celebration and shock. But it was a time I will never forget. Even though the details start to fade, the feeling will stay with me forever.
Dan Egan:It's an incredible moment. We'll put the link in the description of the podcast. But when Hannah Carney won the gold medal and Shannon Barkey embraces you, it is quite a moment. There you look a little in disbelief and she comes up and just makes you realize that you won the gold. You know you were known for so many things, I think, being tough competitor. Many things, I think being tough competitor. Of course, consistency really setting the mark. But you really also brought in a trend with the pigtails that still is around today and I personally don't think you get enough credit for it. Tell us about that.
Hannah Kearney:I don't know if this is a good moment or a bad moment, but someone forwarded me a video of, like a young Swedish influencer doing her hair like that, saying what do you think? Thinking she invented it, and that was the first time in my life. I was like, felt territorial about it. I was like, oh no, this, this TikTok girl can't get credit for that. But it also just makes you realize how old you are and how long ago I was wearing my hair like that. The real, the backstory to that is again that I'm so old.
Hannah Kearney:We used to compete without helmets. So I think I competed one World Cup season without helmets Maybe not, maybe I just made the team. Anyway, when Johnny Moseley did the dinner roll and the next season, inverted inverts are allowed. Helmets of course become required if you're going are allowed. Helmets of course become required if you're going with your heads going below your feet. So we all were like scrambling to find helmet sponsors or at least figure out who could make a helmet for mobile skiing. We didn't want to wear a slalom helmet or a downhill helmet. That's too bulky. You need a little more consciousness and airflow for air awareness. So my helmet didn't fit.
Hannah Kearney:Well is the short part of this story and I had really long hair at the time so I just like wrapped it at first to like secure my helmet to my head with my hair. So that was part of the story and the other part was, you know, we used to have hats with like cute pom poms or the jester hats or Johnny Mosley's leopard. Your hat showed some of your style in freestyle and I loved my pom-pom hats. And all of a sudden I felt like I looked like a boy and looked like everyone else and so having my hair up was a way to look not more feminine but just have a different style. And then it stuck. But it was not a superstition because I made sure, one time in my career I competed on world World Cup without my hair up in braids, just to prove that it wasn't a superstition.
Dan Egan:It is iconic and iconic to you. I'll never forget it. When you see it now just out and about people, you know you can actually buy the setup now that people do it without having long hair. How does that make you feel?
Hannah Kearney:I mean I just smile because I'm very confident they have no idea that as far as I know, I was the first person to do it, or at least did it the most did it on national television. Just on Saturday I was skiing with my little daughter strapped to my chest and big day her hair's long enough to braid and I had it up in her little goggle pit viper sunglasses thing. So I had her hair up, she was strapped to my body and I skied by a lesson. It was about six girls I think I like gotten their way. They were maybe doing like video or something. I might've gotten their way, but I just skied by and said I love your hair to probably an eight-year-old girl with her hair up that and just skied right by. So I never actually got to see her reaction. Who knows if she had any idea what was happening, but she looked adorable.
Dan Egan:You know, in every athlete's career there's challenges to overcome and I know you've had your share. But bring us to 2006, that result and how that motivated you for 2010.
Hannah Kearney:You know there's nothing quite like failure as motivation, or I mean it can defeat you or it can provide motivation. Looking back, it's very obvious why I didn't succeed in 2006. I was not fully prepared. It's also hard at your first Olympics to fully grasp what it's going to feel like. So it's hard to train for, and in turn I didn't really train at all.
Hannah Kearney:I had been a high school multi-sport athlete and that was my training for skiing. There are pros and cons to that, you know. Fewer orthopedic injuries from doing the same sport only at a really young age, and so I loved that. I ran track and played soccer too. But the downside of that is once I graduated I no longer had those sports and I was a little bit lost. And it was back before the ski team system was so official and their sports science was developed enough that we didn't even have a strength and conditioning coach working with the mobile team. So I was sort of just like someone might have emailed me. Did I have an email address? Someone might have mailed me like a pamphlet of exercises to do, but I'd never even stepped foot in a gym. So like what am I gonna? So I didn't do them. I that's. Maybe I tried a few, but it was like really disorganized and I wasn't a serious athlete at that point. Look, this is all in retrospect. It's easy for me to say that now.
Hannah Kearney:I probably felt like I was trying then. I was naturally talented. I had won world championships as a 19-year-old, so it kind of seemed like that same year or the next season that I could win the Olympics too. It's the same competitors, it's the same judges, it's the same course. But my attitude and preparation were poor, to say the least, and I absolutely felt the pressure of the Olympic Games when you're young and when you've never experienced it before. There is so much more national and international attention on the Olympics when you're coming up in a sport that no one really pays attention to any other time of the uh, no, not year any other time in the four-year cycle until the Olympic Games. So it was like whoa, whoa, whoa. Everyone was trying to be supportive, but it felt like a lot of pressure, um, on me, especially because, uh, I had the potential to win the medal. I had shown that I could compete at that level.
Hannah Kearney:Um, and yeah, getting making a mistake in run one. I could compete at that level. Um, and, yeah, getting making a mistake in run one. Basically I'm like the third mogul I made a mistake and it's over, because you don't get another chance. You do now get two chances.
Hannah Kearney:Um, in the qualification run which I think is very kind is, let people like settle in. Moguls is usually contested before the opening ceremonies even happened, so like, let's everyone, let's make sure the best athletes make it through. And then, from then on, the last three runs are all, uh, just the single run format. But it was challenging, um, for all the reasons I just explained, to perform my best. I felt so nervous and, um, I didn't. I was stiff and not relaxed, not confident, and uh, I didn't ski well, so huge disappointment.
Hannah Kearney:That then turned into an injury the following season, as I was kind of like flailing around figuring out what I should do with my life and my career, and that injury was truly a turning point, maybe more so than the failure as far as switching my motivation to like singularly focus on the sport of mobile skiing.
Hannah Kearney:And I now had the help around me can't come back from injury without pts and trainers and that process allowed me to like learn how to train as a mobile skier and I started taking it really seriously, tracking results and my time in the gym, and I gained confidence there and I and I also, as cheesy as it sounds gained gratitude I'd never had a life without the sport of skiing.
Hannah Kearney:I mean, I learned how to ski when I was two. I don't remember learning how to ski and so I didn't remember a winter without skiing. And having to take a year off to have surgery on your knee and rehab kind of makes you like oh no, I really do love this because I'm missing it a lot right now. And so when I returned, I was definitely more grateful for what had been pretty taxing on me the traveling around the world as, like a 18, 19 year old, missing some of my friends from school, missing out on normal teenage experiences. But I didn't care Once I was now, I guess, 21, coming back from this injury and I was ready to be a professional mogul skier and that's what I became.
Dan Egan:The US has a great history of mogul skiing and women mogul skiing. I'm wondering how Liz McIntyre and Donna you know legends in the sport influenced you.
Hannah Kearney:It's cool that I'm at the end of an era here where I remember mogul skiing coming into its Olympic existence. I was young but I was alive when Donna Weinbrecht won the first gold medal in the sport and then because of that I need to know more of the history of this. Because they wanted to switch. So there was breaks. The summer and winter Olympics were evenly staggered. The winter Olympic Olympians benefited and they got. Two years later they got another Olympics.
Hannah Kearney:And so in 1994, liz McIntyre, who was from that Ford Sayre program, from not quite my hometown but the same area, got to bring the medal, brought the medal back home to the upper Valley where I am from, and I even marched in a parade welcoming your home. And at that point I'd been exposed to freestyle skiing myself and was doing the Ford Sayre program at the Dartmouth Skiway on Wednesday afternoons. And so my parents say that I came home from the parade and said I want to do that. I don't remember that, but like also, if you see an Olympic medal, who doesn't want one of their own? So I don't think it's anything notable about me saying that, but I am pretty stubborn, competitive driven. So I suppose that me saying that out loud and they say that you should say your goals out loud. That may have had some influence on setting my path towards becoming an Olympian.
Dan Egan:Has that motivated you to mentor this current batch and who you're most connected with in the current batch of women mogul skiers?
Hannah Kearney:That's a good question. I intentionally don't push that. If anyone wants to approach me, I'm happy to share. I've stayed close to the current athletes more as being a staff member of the organization and then trying to stay friendly with them all so that they'll answer my Instagram messages when I ask questions to get insight for commentary. I think we're in an era now that nobody on the current team none of the women on the current team were skiing when I was an active athlete, so there's just enough gap that perhaps that actually would be a good time to be a mentor. I did say I will say that I spoke to Jalen.
Hannah Kearney:I gave a presentation to the whole team in 2018. None of the athletes had ever been to an Olympic game, so it was. I think there were three men and four women, maybe four and four no athlete. Actually, none of the coaches had been either, except for Brian Wilson. So I gave a little like kind of comical presentation, trying to explain to them how different the Olympics were. Trying to explain to them how different the Olympics were.
Hannah Kearney:And four years later, right before the 2022 Olympics, jalyn reached out to me and was like hey, are you willing to chat? And we just had a really short but transparent conversation and she was basically like you were totally right about everything you said four years ago, and I had mentioned that it's really hard to understand that until you experience it yourself. So me doing a PowerPoint is not as effective as actually living through it and experiencing how different the Olympics are, um, but I think from that experience, uh, she then like trusted me a little bit more and so you could tell she was in a better head space. There was nothing that I had said to her, she just wanted like a sounding board, um, and she went in with so much more confidence and she'd actually had a really tough season um that year, leading into uh winning a silver medal at the Olympics.
Hannah Kearney:But from that conversation in probably early February or late January, I could tell she was in a much better spot. So you know, I can take some credit for her Olympic medal, but not much, and I wouldn't consider myself a mentor. But I'm also happy to share anything from my experience and what I've learned is like athletes are such individual people Freestyle is made up of a bunch of kooks. We're all a bit weird in the best way possible, but you kind of what one? What a path that worked for one person won't necessarily work for another. So you can share and people can take what they want from that.
Dan Egan:You know, when you see Waterville Valley back on the world stage hosting World Cups and of course the Prestons front and center with that and still sort of having their hand in it with Wes designing the course and everything, how does that make you feel about Waterville and your time there and the Prestons?
Hannah Kearney:Oh, warm and fuzzy. I was mostly just jealous that I couldn't go in person. Doing the commentary from afar meant that I didn't get to be at Waterville and my mom went two years ago at the first World Cup and she just had the best time sending me photographs of all my old teammates from Waterville that I hadn't seen in 25 years, who have families of their own now, and it brought them to come spectate on Lower Bobby's run. It's just really cool and I think Waterville deserves a huge shout out. Tim Smith did a great job hosting an event.
Hannah Kearney:It's always hard to host a World Cup, but a freestyle World Cup, having to do the course construction and the amount of time and energy and money that gets put into that, is a lot, but it makes a difference to these athletes and to the sport in the United States to have these domestic events.
Hannah Kearney:Exposure is the best way to spread the message and hopefully inspire the next generation. You know some, optimistically, some family would happen to just be skiing that weekend. Some little girl saw Jalen get second place and thought, well, I could try that. Um cause, seeing is believing, um. So it's also such a great, uh spectator friendly sport, as far as you know not to give Alpine a hard time, but in my experience spectating Alpine is oftentimes standing at the bottom of a run watching a TV screen, and in mogul skiing you can see the whole venue from one spot. You can even usually ski right up to the side of the course and watch people go off the jump. So I love that it's a little more accessible for spectating and I encourage people to go to Waterville next year if FIS approves the calendar, and I hope that we continue to have Mobile World Cups in the Northeast because there's such a history there, especially at Waterville Valley.
Dan Egan:And, of course, this is a big spring for you You're going to be inducted into the US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. It's a massive event and a great accomplishment. Congratulations to you, hannah. What are you excited about? Being inducted into the US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.
Hannah Kearney:That's funny. Just this week I was like, oh, I guess I get to buy a new outfit. That sounds really fun. Night out without the kid oh my God, that's what my life's come to. I'm excited about dinner with actually, you know what? She's probably going to be there for the dinner component of it, cause I would love to share this with my daughter. But, um, I would also like to enjoy a meal and actually watch the.
Hannah Kearney:Honestly, watching the videos of the other inductees is one of the things I'm most excited for, like learning about cause I think the hall of fame does such a good job inducting people from so many different backgrounds and parts of the sport of skiing. Skiing has such a rich history in this country and there's some really cool inductees this year, so I'm excited to learn more. And I am a sucker for those highlight videos when it comes to the Olympics love them, any sort of award show. So I'm really excited for the videos. And then I'm excited to go back to Lake Placid.
Hannah Kearney:Um, I grew up well, not grew up later. In my career I spent a lot of time in Lake Placid because the Olympic Training Center is there and it was just a wonderful place for me to work on specifically my acrobatics. Um, in the summers I would live in Lake Placid. The Lucy family that has, you know, owns a lot of Lake Placid and has tons of property there. They actually adopted, had my dog live with them so that I could go visit her every day after training. So Lake Placid has a big spot in my heart and it makes it so that people like the Prestons and all the people connected to the New England world in my history will also be able to attend instead of having to fly across the country. So those are the things I'm excited about. Like I said, a family, a family, a ski, family reunion.
Dan Egan:Oh, I love it's going to be a special night. I'm surely looking forward to it and it's going to be great, you know really. Congratulations on a wonderful career representing New Hampshire as you have. You have a lot of roots there and we appreciate that here on the 603. So thanks for all your time today.
Hannah Kearney:Thank you so much Dan.
