In the fall and spring, Zach Gaudet is a sophomore at Lebanon High. But for the last two winters, he’s attended Mount Snow Academy in West Dover, Vt. as he trains to be an elite freestyle skier. That training paid off for Gaudet at the USA Snowbard and Freeski Association (USASA) National Championships earlier this month at Copper Mountain, Colo., where he won a gold medal in the rail jam for ages 15-22 and a bronze medal in slopestyle for 15- and 16-year-olds.
Gaudet spent three weeks in Colorado training and competing with his Mount Snow teammates. The Valley News caught up with Gaudet to learn about his experience at nationals and his skiing background. This interview has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity and brevity.
Valley News: How did you first get into competitive ski racing?
Zach Gaudet: I first started off racing at Whaleback Mountain, and I really enjoyed it, so I kept on going. I eventually wanted to start doing slopestyle full-time, because I had a lot more fun with it and it was a lot more amusing. I started competing in mountains around the East Coast, and then when I was 12, I went to Waterville Valley, N.H. and started to train there. That’s when I really started to get better and grow as a skier.
VN: How does attending a ski academy for part of the school year differ from a traditional high school?
Gaudet: I have my teachers online. Basically, I do school in the morning, and then I’ll ski in the afternoon, and the next day it’ll switch. That’s basically how it works. I have one-on-one meetings with teachers who work with me at Mount Snow. They weren’t in charge of the courses I was taking, but they helped me with the material.
VN: What do you enjoy the most about skiing and competing?
Gaudet: I just enjoy the community, and learning a new trick is the best feeling ever. Landing your tricks and putting down a good run in competition.
VN: How did this particular opportunity come about for you to go out to Colorado?
Gaudet: I do a bunch of local events in what’s called the Southern Vermont Series, and the USASA does these competitions all around the country. They’ll take the top kids in each series, and going into nationals, I was ranked in the top three nationally.
VN: How did the national competitions work?
Gaudet: Slopestyle is like a course that has jumps, and it has rails, too. The judges take the best of two runs. Rail jam is different — it’s just rails, and they take a bunch of your tricks and see who does the best overall. The course was really big. It was a difficult course to get used to, because it was a lot bigger than what we have on the East Coast, but it was really fun to be able to hit that course that all the pros hit. It was a great experience.
VN: Where do you hope to go next as a freestyle skier?
Gaudet: I actually competed in a thing called the Futures Tour, where there’s no age groups. It’s an open class competition, and I competed in that in New York, at Gore Mountain. After Futures Tour, you go into the Revolution Tour, which is all the older kids who are pros. After that, you qualify for the World Cup. I want to keep competing in the Futures Tour and qualify for the Revolution Tour, and start competing at the next level.
Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.