OUTSIDE
From Hot Chocolate to Black Diamond Runs Former Olympic skiers and snowboarders offer advice for nurturing a love of snow sports in kids STORY BY RUTH BERKOWITZ • PHOTOS COURTESY OF FEATURED FAMILIES
O
lympic snowboarder Lisa Kosglow looks for snow fairies as she and her five-year-old daughter meander to the bottom of Buttercup ski run at Mt. Hood Meadows. Kosglow stops herself from instructing Emelia to bend her knees. “Instead, I let her lead the way,” says Kosglow, a member of the first women’s U.S. Snowboard Team to compete in the Olympics in 1998 in Nagano, Japan. She competed again in 2002 at the Salt Lake City Winter Games. Similarly, Olympic mogul skier Bronwen Hager (formerly Thomas) and her husband Garth Hager, a coach for the U.S. Ski Team, refrain from pushing their daughters to perfect their turns. “Our main goal is for them to like the sport of skiing,” says Bronwen, who grew up skiing on Mt. Baker in Washington and represented Canada in 1992 in Albertville, France, and again in 1994 in Lillehammer, Norway. “It’s all about making it fun,” says four-time Olympian AJ Kitt. If you feel challenged skiing with just one child, imagine hauling triplets to the hill. Kitt and his wife, Amy, have three 10-year-olds, all competitors on the Mt. Hood Meadows Race Team.
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