Heidi Kloser News

Summer

2011-09-01T19:40:00.000-07:00

This summer has been great! It started with a super fun trip to Europe for mountain biking. Coached by Olympic gold medalist Connie Carpenter. I learned so much from that trip and became a much better biker. It is super cool to be able to see another sport at such a high level. I was surprised at how fast some of those girls are and how technical the courses are. I also got to meet some more awesome people on that trip and learn more about summer sports since I usually participate in winter sports.

After biking in Europe I went out to Park City for physical testing and some water ramping. I left for Lake Placid shortly after that. I worked with another Olympic gold medalist Eric Bergoust. He was a very helpful coach and my jumps were improving a lot with his help. His technical advice helped me to fix some of my problems. I love being in Lake Placid it is a great place to train. The OTC is so convenient, the athletes there are so fun to be around! I feel like I fit in with when I am there. I also love how close everything is. It is easy to focus and get productive training there. The fourth of July was really fun there too! I treaded water for about 45 minutes watching fireworks from the middle of Mirror Lake so fun!

I went back out to Park City after Lake Placid for some more ramping before we took a trip to Mt. Hood. I got my tricks ready to throw on snow again. I also did an aerials water ramp comp. It was a lot different than mogul skiing but it was fun to try out.

Mt. Hood was great. It is nice to ski a bit on a flatter course in the middle of summer just to slow things down and really work on technique. Jumping there was also really good. I figured out what things I still needed to work on when I got back to water ramps. We went on a really pretty hike behind a waterfall there. I also got to ski in my T-shirt and spandex there

which was really nice because it was so hot. It was also really funny to be skiing moguls and jumping with tight clothes. Some extra incentive to do it correctly.

I came back to Park City for some more training. Water ramping, trampoline and strength and conditioning. It has been really good here so far getting a lot of work done on my jumps and getting stronger. I have also been slackling here a lot. It is so much fun! I am defiantly obsessed. Thanks to Gibbon for giving me a line. I love to learn and throw new tricks on and off of my slackline. It is a great way to spend my spare time and my friends really like it too.

I did the show in Park City last week and it was really fun to jump in front of all of those people. The energy in the crowd is great. I love it when people want to come watch what I love to do. It is great to inspire others to try water ramping and skiing. I am doing the show again this week so if any one is in town they should come watch it is really fun.

Over all this summer had been great. I have gotten to be around lots of really inspiring people. I am so happy that I get to call my favorite thing my "job".

Heidi Kloser

New Skills

2011-06-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning started out with attempting to do wheelies in the grass. It was fun, I am not very good at doing wheelies but I got up a couple of times and fell shortly after that. When the boys arrived we headed out for a relay ride. After we got warmed up we started the relays, it was a fun way to do interval training. Then we rode around the Black Forest on some cool trails. We headed to the bike park again and played on the obstacles for a while. I have learned how to do so much new stuff this trip. I learned how to ride over logs, teeter-totters and how to jump off of drops. It would have been nice to know how to do this stuff before the Offenburg World Cup but at least I know how to do it now. I still have a lot to learn but hopefully some of my new skills will come in handy on my ride tomorrow. The bike park is fun and by the end of our time there we were pushing our skill levels. Shortly before we left and on our way out we had a couple of crashes. I saw Wesley go off a drop almost had it and her bike jut toppled over her; she got up a little shaken and beaten up and rode down the hill. At the bottom of the hill Alisha and I both fell in the same spot, I rolled out of it but she scraped her knee up. It was hard to stop there with all of the people standing in the way. We took a break ate lunch and then headed out for a second ride in the afternoon. It was a nice easy ride into Freiburg on the bike path and then we turned around. It is crazy here you have watch out for cars on the bike path because they drive on it. They have little roads everywhere; you can just ride up the mountain on the road and then find a super sweet down hill on the way down.

Yesterday we went up a mountain road for about an hour and then found a hut and a field. The hut was closed this time of year but I bet it is packed in the summer. We rode up the field a little ways and found a really cool down hill. My hands started to cramp towards the bottom. The very bottom of the trail had crazy tight switchbacks. We came back changed and headed in to Freiberg. We walked around the city for a while. It was absolutely packed in there because it is a holiday weekend. We went in this really big old church. It was really big and had some cool paintings in it. Out side of the Church was a crape stand. We stopped and got some delicious crapes! We walked back to our meeting spot and then we left some of the girls in Freiberg to get their haircut and take the train back. They said it was a unique experience getting their haircut in a foreign country.

Today we went for a little pre-race ride. Rode some on the single track and then did some short efforts on the road. We rode to the boys house and practiced wheel changes. After that we changed out of our bike clothes we went to the Waffle house and got delicious waffles. Mine had applesauce on it and it was delicious. Most of the others got wild berries and ice cream, it looked really good and I might have to try it tomorrow if we go back. I chopped some potatoes with flimsy knives, seems like my designated job.

Post Race

2011-06-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

The race was the hardest mountain bike race I have ever raced in as expected. These girls are so fast. I raced hard, but had some difficulty. My start was not very good, I could not get my foot in my pedal for a couple hundred meters and I had to avoid a pileup at the first corner. So I was pretty far off the back at the hill and I had some catching up to do if I wanted to stay in the race. I passed a girl on the climb and was pretty close to another right before the down hill. I made it over the drops no problem, jut take it at a comfortable speed. I was pushing the speed on some of the other stuff and crashed quite a few times (not to hard, just slow). I got passed back when I was running down one of the technical spots after I crashed. I kept crashing and lost a lot of time, I raced hard but got pulled at 80% on my second lap. I was bummed that I could not finish all of the laps, but also happy that I did not have to run down the technical spots any more. I think that I learned a lot from the race, about how to ride technical stuff and that I race better at the end of the summer when I am in better shape. It was really cool to watch the pro men race and see how fast they were and how they handled the technical stuff.

The next day we went for a nice ride up in the Black Forest (Schwartzwald) we found some fun single track to ride down, it was dry and loose. The down hill was fun and I defiantly think that riding the Offenburg course helped my technical skills and I feel like I am improving each day. We found a little practice park in the forest with some logs, drops and other boards to practice on. It was fun to go there and just practice on that equipment and learn how to handel the stuff in a controlled environment. I think that it helps to be able to practice skill where you feel comfortable. It was nice we also had Heather there to give us some pointers too.

We went out for a pretty long ride with the boys yesterday and got to ride an awesome section of single track up past St. Petersburg along a ridge and by some giant windmills. They may not look that big from far a way and like they are moving slow but they are huge and generating a lot of power. The down hill was loose, turny and dropy. It felt like I was riding stuff similar to the rides in Colorado. I definitely have gotten a lot beter at riding sine I have gotten to Europe and ridden one of the toughest mountain biking courses in the world. I would not have wanted to ride that section if it was in Colorado before I came here. I only fell once on it and it was a silly little mistake. This trip has made me better at riding my bike. We also got to see the skills of Wayne the mechanic when Wesley broke her brake and he fixed it with a camera cord and electrical tape. Very Cool! After the ride it started to rain, which was nice because it has given me some relief from my allergies which have just been killing me this trip. We took some short naps, I stretched and we went to dinner at a pizzeria to celebrate Heathers birthday. I love European pizza!

Today we went for a rainy ride! It is fun to ride in the rain. It looked so cool up in the mountains with all of the mist and the green trees. The trails are not dry any more. On the way up the mountain we saw a black and yellow salamander just standing in the same spot, we rode by and took pictures and it did not move. Our whole group saw it in the same spot just chilling in the middle of the fire road. We also saw lots of huge slugs on the trail, they were really grows if you accidentally rode over them, they exploded and left slug guts all over your wheel. There were also some really big snails on the road too. On the sides of the roads are the cows, sheep, goats, and horses of corse. After our nice rainy ride I hopped in the shower and warned up a bit. We wanted to do some laundry so we drove in the town and tried to find a Laundromat. Apparently the everyone that does not have a washer and drier must do their laundry on Friday from 12-2 because the lady told us that that was the only time they were open for laundry. I walked around in the town after that and tried to find the playground that I had my 3rd birthday at, I had no luck. It was a while ago so some things may have changed. I guess that I cannot rely on my memory from when I was 3 to help me find the playground. I walked around the town a bit more then headed home to stretch and have some dinner.

Check out the other blogs at http://eurocamp2011.wordpress.com

Mountain Biking

2011-05-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

I got to pre-ride the world cup course the past couple of days, it is completely different than anything I have aver ridden in my life. It is also way harder. I got to the course and started riding, we came up to the technical sections and stopped to take a look at the stuff. I got pretty scared. They told me to prepare for drops so I went out and rode some drops but nothing like this. I rode down the drops that are pretty big and skinny with multipul drops, just need to keep my hands off the front brakes. The roots here are also really slippery, but not the hardest part. I have to walk some of the course because I am not prepared for this at all. Vail has been a little snowy lately preventing me from doing the training I wanted to do. When I first got out on the coure yesterday I felt like I have never ridden my bike before in my life. I felt a bit more confident today, after I knew what some of the stuff was like, and I knew what I was going to walk down and just needed to find the best way down it. I though I was alright at bike riding until I got here. The other competitors all fly down this stuff with ease, and are super fast. I am just hoping to be able to ride it better than I have been in training, race the best I can and hope that my knee is not hurting to bad. I was really glad that I got to see the juniors race today and see how things were going in the race, and that I was not the only one running down stuff. I have never see a race this big. I am racing tomorrow, no more pre-riding on the course.

Checkout the blog Wesley Geer put together for the trip. http://eurocamp2011.wordpress.com

Start to Summer

2011-05-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

After the skiing competitions ended I went back home for a week with Ashley Caldwell. We were lucky and got some nice skiing in that week. The weather was different every day so we got almost every type of snow condition. We even decided to try snowboarding. We probably fell about 20 times getting to the lift from the parking structure. After a few more runs of falling constantly we started to get the hang of it. Snowboarding was fun but I am defiantly a skier. Vail got hit by a huge storm and it was time to hit some huge cornices and rip some powder.

We headed to Charleston to visit Ashley's family and go the beach. It was nice to get some sun this spring since it has been stuck in winter mode in Colorado. We hit the beach and got some pretty awesome sunburns. You need a lot more sunscreen than you think when you used to winter weather. The warm weather was nice but the 85 degree days definitely put a hurt on me. We had some fun slacklining on the beach, playing in the sand and painting our selves with mud.

I came back home, back to winter. Skied some more while the mountain was still open. I went with my family to the desert and we did lots of biking and hiking. I finished up high school and started to train for biking. I got selected to go to Germany with USA cycling to train and race with the U23 team. I get to do a world cup and a racer cup durring my trip. I trained in the gym, on the bike and skinned up Vail mtn some. The amount of snow around this time of year is incredible. It is nearing the end of May and the mountain looks a lot like it does on closing day some years (other than the fact they plowed the roads). The trip to Europe this time should be different and hopefully exciting, it has been a while since I have been to Europe in the Summer. I am excited to race bikes and hopefully get stronger for skiing.

Skiing

2011-01-15T08:48:00.000-08:00

I had a good competition in China ending up 10th. I was certainly ready to head home. The travel home was very long and the trip in Europe and China was getting long too. The travel home ended up being 56:30 hours +. That is a record and I hope I never break it. We went from China to Europe to U.S.A. it would have been much niceer to just fly direct from Beijing to the U.S.. I made it home in time for Christmas which was very good because I did not want to be stuck in Europe for Christmas with all of the snow storms. Christmas was nice we stayed at home for the morning, then we drove over to Aspen to see the rest of the family. We went sledding up at my Grandparents cabin.

I coached the kids at Ski and Snowboard Club Vail (SSCV) for their Christmas Camp. I had a good time working with them. It is great to coach the kids because it reminds you how far you have come and what a little hard work can do. It was also really fun to coach them because I skied some places I had not skied in a couple of years. Skiing the trees and moguls with the kids was really fun.

After I was done coaching I trained on the courses at Vail. I also got the opportunity to work on the airbag. The airbag was great because it is a good way to learn new tricks without having to wait for the summer and water ramps. I got some good training durring the break. I was also happy because I had consistent axes to the gym at SSCV (Center Of Awesomeness). It is really important to go to the gym because strength is a huge part of our sport.

I headed up to Mont Gabrial for a World Cup up here. Unfortunately it did not go very well. I fell after the top air and did not make the finals. I still have a couple of World Cups left over here so hopefully they go better. I am headed to Lake Placid tomorrow and I am really excited to go there. I had a great time at the OTC this summer and I really like it there. After Lake Placid I go to Calgary and I will see where I go from there.

Heidi Kloser

Finland 2010

2010-12-16T02:05:00.000-08:00

The competition in Finland went really well for me. I got my first top ten at a World Cup event! The course was a difficult course and the first day of training did not really go how I wanted it to. I got a couple of bruises but the second day was much better. I was able to do some top to bottoms with tricks and push through the difficult parts of the course. Comp day was really good for me. It was my first time competing in the dark and it was a really cool experience, I hope it get to do it more. The lighting is much more consistent at night. Getting out of the top air was still difficult during the competition but the rest of my run was solid. I was really excited to be in tenth place after qualifying. I had a better final’s run and stayed in tenth place. The competition was really tight and it was really fun.

Finland is a cool country, the sunrise/sunset was beautiful the day that the clouds cleared out. It was defiantly cold there. The mountain was pretty small and you had to put the bar down on the chair lifts otherwise they would stop the chairlift and yell at you over an intercom on the chairlift tower. The food was a classical European breakfast and they served us some different things at dinner. The fried reindeer was not as good as the grilled reindeer fillet that I had in Åre Sweden last year. I can defiantly say that I tried some interesting combinations with my food and made most of my team question me. I was just trying to eat enough food. The set up in Finland was really nice because there was a gym right next to our rooms so we do some exercises without freezing because it was really cold outside.

Heidi Kloser

Austria 2010

2010-12-08T05:02:00.000-08:00

Training in Austria went well. I felt like I was making improvements in with my skiing. I feel so much stronger this year and I am really excited for this first comp in a few days. My comp season starts December 11^th with a World Cup in Ruca Finland.

The mogul course in Austria was fun when we could see it. The course was also really fast! And was good jump training. I was able to do lots of backlayouts, backfulls, and 360’s. All of the strength training from this summer is really paying off.

The View from the mountain was amazing when we could see it. Some days the clouds prohibited us from seeing very much. The course never got much sun because there was a peak blocking the sun from us. It was probability just preparing us for Finland.

While in Austria I also got to experience a bit of their culture. Our team was there during the Krampus day holiday (a day where men dress up in super scary costumes and go around beating people with sticks and other weapons). It is very different than any other holiday I have ever seen but it was a really cool experience.

We decided to go to the parade, where most of the ceremonies take place, and see what it was all about. When we got there, we walked up to the end of the parade and saw an ambulance there just in case. That made it a bit more frightening; then we start to see the creatures walking out of the path and hit people with horsetail whips and sticks. I back up against the wall and try to be unnoticed. We make out way into the crowd and I feel safer behind a line of people. Some of the masked men seem to be relentless with the whipping and some of the others were not as harsh. My teammate Dave DiGravio (the only one wearing a helmet) decided to tease some of them, some times he hot a high-five and other times he got beaten with a stick. I posted a video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/HeidiKloser. We went back to the hotel and later that night I heard some screaming. It was really cool to get to experience their culture like that.

Headed to Europe and China

2010-11-28T07:07:00.000-08:00

Im on my way to Europe and China right now and I am super excited. Fall training has been going great. I am really glad that I got knee surgery because my knee feels so much better now. I went out to Park City for a little while after surgery and worked on strength and conditioning. I got a chance to work with Michael my new strength and conditioning coach before I would do my workouts on my own back at home. I got to focus on trampoline and strength before the snow came. I was very bussy with my school work, which is now down to one class. I also got to do some highschool mountain biking and I ended up doing really well and won States. I was really glad that I got the opportunity to do the highschool mountain biking league because I love to compete and ride my bike.

When the snow came and I got to start skiing again. It is always really fun to go skiing! Vail opened up the Golden Peak race arena for ski clubs to train on for the early season, so I was very fortunate to have a mogul lane and a jump to work with. I continued to do my workouts, school work and skiing, which made for a very bussy day. I would come home eat and then want to go to bed. I can feel a difference in my skiing from all of my work over the sumer with the water ramps, trampolines, and all of the strength and conditioning. My summer and fall were great and I hope the winter is too.

Heidi Kloser

Rookie of Year Kloser Travels to Train

2010-09-24T21:38:00.000-07:00

Heidi Kloser soars off the second air at the Killington NorAm in February.

PARK CITY, UT (Aug. 18) – 2010 Rookie of the Year, Heidi Kloser (Vail, CO) has been busy this summer, splitting her time between Lake Placid, NY and Park City. Kloser has dedicated her summer to flying high at the Lake Placid and Utah Olympic Park water ramps.

Kloser was named to the U.S. Moguls Team in December 2009 after qualifying at the 2010 selection events. Kloser kept the momentum going, earning four World Cup starts in the 2009-10 season. She made her mark on the circuit, qualifying for the finals in three out of the four World Cup starts. Kloser's impressive first season paid off when she was recognized as the 2010 Rookie of the Year recipient in March at the World Cup in Sierra Nevada, Spain.

"I found out that I had won the award when I was lying in bed. I just had the stomach flu for a day," said Kloser. "That was pretty exciting and not expected at all. It made me feel like I can do really well in the World Cups and working hard will pay off."

Kloser made a three week move to Lake Placid to train with Wes Preston, a member of the notable moguls and aerials Preston family. Preston also worked with Kloser's teammate, Olympic gold medalist Hannah Kearney (Norwich, VT). While on the east coast, she focused on perfecting her take-off and dialing in on tricks such as back lay outs and back Fulls.

"She has a bright future and has worked really hard to get to this point," said Head Coach Scott Rawles. "She went out to Lake Placid and worked with Wes Preston, who helps Hannah [Kearney] when she's jumping there. She trained with him in between camps in Park City, so she's had a really busy summer."

"At Lake Placid there weren't as many average skiers that come to just jump for the day or two, and the workout facilities are a little bit different," said Kloser. "The Utah Olympic Park has a lot more water ramps and Lake Placid's ramps were nice because there weren't many people there."

While in Park City, Kloser took full advantage of the Utah Olympic Park, spending a lot of time jumping with teammates. She has also been packing on the miles at the Center of Excellence's trampolines, as well as utilizing the state-of-the-art weights and gym equipment.

Although her summer has been jam-packed, Kloser still found time to squeeze in a family vacation in between her trips to Lake Placid and Park City.

"I went to Lake Powell this summer for a couple days with my family," said Kloser. We swam and kayaked."

Kloser joined the Team down under in Australia for an on-snow camp at Perisher in August.

http://www.usskiteam.com/freestyle/news?storyId=2887

Summer

2010-06-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

So far this summer I have been doing a lot of training. First I went out to Park City Utah, and did some on snow and strength training. I went home for a couple of days and then headed back out to Utah. I went out to Park City to do some water ramping at a U.S. Ski Team water ramping camp. I also went out to the Center of Excellence and did lots of strength training while I was out there. I had a U.S. Ski Team rookie camp in Park City the next week so I stayed out there and continued water ramping and strength training until the rookie camp started. After that was over I flew out to Lake Placid and I am going to be training at the water ramps here for a while. I did a bunch of water ramping today and worked on mostly layouts and 360's it was a good day of training. I also got my bike today and just put it together. It will be nice to have a bike here for transportation.

World Cup Finals

2010-03-21T18:35:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Europe. I had a really successful trip. I got 13th at both events in Sweden and another 13th in Spain. The day before the comp in Sierra Nevada I got the stomach flu. I was really weak and had not eaten more than a piece of bread for breakfast. It was really difficult to find the energy to compete, but I really wanted to. The conditions went really bad that morning and you could not see anything. When I was standing up top of the course right before my run I had to do a double take to make sure I was in the right line. I talked to other competitors and they said they also had a hard time making sure they were in the right line. I landed the top air and made a couple of turns and could not see any thing, I dug my tip into a mogul and went flying over my head. I finished my run and made it to finals since the conditions were so bad enough other skiers had bad runs too. Finals went a little better, I made some mistakes on my airs, but I skied really fast. I made some big turns out of top air and I came into bottom faster than I had in training an went really big on my Back flip and almost fell. I got FIS Rookie of the Year for the World Cup. I got this huge crystal trophy. Thankfully, I also got a metal suitcase with it to bring it home. This season was a great season for me. I made the US ski team at US selections with a 4th and a 2nd place. I got 8th at the Gold Cup in Steamboat, I got 3rd, 2nd, and two 1st at Nor-Am's this year which gave me the over all Nor-Am title. I got 16th at my first world cup, and 13th at four of the others. I made the finals 5/6 times at world cups. This year has been my best year ever for skiing so far. Thanks for following me and cheering me on.

Spain, Sierra Nevada

2010-03-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a travel day to Spain. It was a long day for not traveling that far. My bags did not arrive when I did, but one of my teammates was coming in later that evening so I ended up getting them by the end of the day. While I was waiting I got to go to the beach of Malaga. It was cool to be able to go the the beach and the mountains in the same day. Spain is really pretty, the roads in Malaga all have tall palm trees on the sides and then the crazy Europeans driving. The roundabouts here are kind of funny, because they have stop lights in them. (I thought that the roundabouts worked because you don't have to stop in the middle, guess I was wrong). We walked along the beach for a little while, and came to this outdoor exercise area. It was like play ground equipment for exercise. I tried everything out, it was really funny because people were seriously using it, even though there was hardly any resistance on it. We went to a little Pizzeria on the side of the road and ate some good pizza. European pizzas are delicious. So far the food in Spain is really good. After we walked around Malaga we headed back to the airport. It was a little tricky finding the right roads around there, because the road system is crazy. We went to the air port picked up my bags, and my teammate. We headed out for Sierra Nevada. I got some pretty cool pictures of Spain.
Today we trained at Sierra Nevada. It is really nice and sunny here, there was not a cloud in the sky today, so we could see really far. It is beautiful up here you can see forever. The top of the mountain is really windy, so the snow is not slushy. It is actually pretty dry here. The course was really hard underneath all of the wind blown snow that softened it up. The turns are really abrupt, and the jumps have lots of drop. It feels like you are going really slow into them, but you actually get a lot of air. I took a back flip to my back today, because I thought I was going to small. The course should be better tomorrow, because they are going to shape the jumps better and it usually gets better after the course gets skied.

Traveling to Europe

2010-03-10T04:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a long day of traveling. I got a bout three hours of sleep in 24hours. The worst part of that is waiting till it is a reasionable time to go to bed. The flight was filled with lots of crying babies, and I was in the middle on a full airplane from Minneapolis to Amsterdam. I got to go through a lot of places I have never been before.
The mountain is pretty cool, the snow is not great here because it is raining right now. Today there was a bit of fresh snow on top of some icy snow. It got pretty warm up so the snow got sticky today. The jumps on the course are pretty flat coming into them, but the middle is a descent pitch. The turns are really close together, and you have to go straight for a while if you want to get off the airs with good air. The jumps are pretty flat so hopefully they will put more up on them. I am really happy/excited to be here right now.

2010-03-05T22:56:00.001-08:00

VICTORY !

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Vail freestyle skier Heidi Kloser, 17, is making this moguls thing look easy. It isn't that easy in reality. The state of Kloser's ribs is a testament to that fact.
Kloser, a Ski and Snowboard Club athlete, overcame a rib-rattling crash Thursday to win Friday's Nor-Am dual moguls in Steamboat Springs. With the win, she captured the 2009-10 Nor-Am overall moguls crown and a spot on the World Cup tour for its final three events of the season.

“I didn't know at first. I figured I was first or second in the standings,” Kloser said. “I wasn't completely sure until we were waiting for awards. Scott Rawles told me.”

Rawles is the head moguls coach of the U.S. Ski Team, and when he delivered the news, Kloser's reaction was rather matter-of-fact.

“I guess I wasn't really surprised,” she said. “I had good results. I was really happy.”

In fairness, Kloser has had a matter-of-fact approach to this season, which has been made up of a lot of firsts. In December, she made the U.S. Freestyle C-Team by finishing second in a FIS race in Winter Park.

While the tour was in the United States, Kloser competed on the World Cup level, making the finals — top 16 — in two of her three starts. As the World Cup went back to Europe and took a break for the Olympics, Kloser returned to Nor-Am competition. All she did there was rattle off six top-10 finishes including a win in individual moguls in Apex, British Columbia, last Saturday.

She took the Nor-Am moguls lead into the Thursday's event, but a mistake on Top Air, the jump on the upper half of Steamboat's mogul course, put her prospects in severe danger.

“I just got a little caught out, and stepped on my skis coming down,” Kloser said. “I crashed pretty hard. I had to finish the run. Once I finished the run, I realized what happened.”

She finished 24th Thursday, dropping down to fourth in the Nor-Am points. More importantly, Kloser had dislodged some of her ribs. She went to physical therapy, became one with the ice pack and took two Advils.

Kloser got her ribs taped up Friday morning and went straight to qualifications for the dual moguls — there was no time for a regular run to see how she would react.

“I was excited and ready to race today,” Kloser said. “It still hurt, but it was all right.”

Kloser breezed through qualifying and then worked her way through the 16-racer bracket. She met up with Canada's Chelsea Hentituk in the finals, and it was revenge time. Hentituk had beaten Kloser in the dual-moguls semifinals in Apex on Sunday.

Kloser got through Top Air cleanly against Hentituk, but still trailed. Kloser passed the Canadian in the middle section of the course and never looked back.

“I didn't want her to get anything on me,” Kloser said. “I was just trying to have clean air and have a clean exit, and was just keeping my feet together through the moguls and had my eyes up.”

With the win, Kloser has a spot in next week's moguls and dual moguls events in Are Sweden, with a stop in Sierra Nevada, Spain, on March 18. After that, it's off to nationals in Squaw Valley Calif.

Kloser said her goal for the World Cup events is to make the finals out of qualifying and see what points she can accumulate. She sits at No. 32 in the world after her three previous World Cup events.

The U.S. Freeskiing Team will make decisions later this year as far as reorganizing its ranks, but the Nor-Am overall moguls win as well as future World Cup and nationals finishes could help Kloser make her case.

“Moving up is always nice,” Kloser said. “I don't know if it will happen this year, but you always hope.”

Sports Editor Chris Freud can be reached at 970-748-2934 or cfreud@vaildaily.com.

Kloser 13th at Lake Placid

2010-01-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. Friday Jan. 22nd — The United States women went 1-2-3-4 in Thursday's World Cup moguls event Thursday in Lake Placid, N.Y.

“And seventh and 13th,” added Vail's Heidi Kloser.

Right you are, young lady. Kloser, 17 years old , finished 13th, making a trip to the finals of a World Cup event for the second time in her third career start Thursday. After taking 16th in Deer Valley, Utah, last week, 13th is new best in a very short, but successful career for Kloser.

“I don't know. I felt I was skiing well enough,” she said. “I'm not really surprised. I'm just happy.”

Not only was it exciting that Kloser was in the points again for the second time in as many weeks, but that she did so in Lake Placid. Teams are required to submit their Olympic rosters on Monday for Vancouver, British Columbia, and while the 2010 Games are not on the radar for Kloser, she was skiing against fellow racers trying to pile on to their point totals.

“You could tell people were stressed out,” Kloser said. “There were people trying to make their Olympic teams. I was treating it as just another competition.”

It was just another competition for Kloser, but the course and the snow were different — flatter and icier than she was used to — so she had to adjust. Getting speed going into her opening back full (a back flip with a full twist) was a little harder.

“It was a lot flatter and kind of icy hard. It was a challenge,” Kloser said. “The flatter run made the moguls drop off a little more.”

She ended her first run with her traditional back flip- X (crossing her skis while inverted) , finishing the first round in 14th, with two spots to spare for moving on to the finals. Each skier skis a qualifying run and the top 16 women and men advance on in there respective categories. In Freestyle skiing the women ski the same course as the men. The course has several lane options that the skiers choose from, they are typically 200 plus meters in length with a slope pitch of 25 degrees or more and include two aerial jumps in the length of the course. Having a little help perhaps from skiing third in the finals, the skiers start the finals in reverse order of how they qualified, Kloser's second run was 2 seconds faster that her first, and that helped her execute her game plan better. In her qualifying round, she was the last skier on the start list to ski and the course had deteriorated as skier after skier came down.

While Hannah Kearney, Shannon Barhrke, Heather McPhie stormed the podium, Kloser in just her third World Cup competition, nudged herself up two spots from 34th to 32nd in the world.

World Cup moguls are done until after the Olympics. The next stop is Inawshiro, Japan, in March. Kloser, as a younger skier on the national team, will understandably not likely make that trip. She'll be working on her international points in Nor-Am races in both the US and Canada.

Kloser will be skiing at this year's first two Nor-Am competitions, back in Lake Placid on Jan. 28, and then heads to Killington, Vt., in early February.

Sports Editor Chris Freud can be reached at 970-748-2934 or via cfreud@vaildaily.com. Photo by Dan Campbell http://www.dancampbellphotography.com/.

VAIL DAILY REPORT 1-15-10

2010-01-15T16:49:00.000-08:00

DEER VALLEY, Utah — Welcome to The Big Show, kid.

Yet Vail's Heidi Kloser, 17, didn't exactly seemed fazed by her first World Cup start. The moguls skier made the finals in her debut, finishing 16th out of 44 of the world's best, and earning her first World Cup points in Deer Valley, Utah, on Thursday.

“It was really super exciting. I was super happy because not that many people do that (their first time),” Kloser said. “I just tried to stay focused and keep doing what I know how to do.”

Skiing 28th in the preliminaries, she pulled a back full, which is back flip with a twist on the end. She said she had good speed during the middle portion of the course and finished with her traditional backwards iron cross.

Surprisingly, Kloser said she didn't feel too nervous. She knew her new teammates on the U.S. Team and wasn't overly-awed to see other skiers from around the world. Her focus before the race was to go through her normal routine “to get my muscles working.”

Kloser performed the same routine in the finals and she felt that she was going with more air and speed, but she was a little behind on her skis coming out of the back full and fell on the mogul in the middle of the course. Nevertheless, it was not only a great experience, but she picked 15 points and now has a world ranking (No. 34) in moguls.

American Heather McPhee won the women's event, while Australia's Dale Begg-Smith was tops for the men.

Kloser competes again in Deer Valley on Saturday and then head to Lake Placid, N.Y., as her young World Cup Career continues.

Sports Editor Chris Freud can be reached at 970-748-2934 or cfreud@vaildaily.com. Photo by Dan Campbell http://www.dancampbellphotography.com/.

Fan Report from Deer Valley, Utah

2010-01-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Heidi grabbed 15 World Cup Points in the first of two individual bumps events this week at Deer Valley. She threw a full twisting back flip and an Iron Cross back flip during her run. The next event is Saturday afternoon, with an evening final, so we'll give you updates ASAP. On the same day brother Christian and dad Mike are competing at the USAT Winter Triathlon Championships just 20 minutes away at Soldier Hollow so good luck to all and thanks to Emily for keeping track of all the logistics! Special thanks to Dan Campbell for his great photos - visit his site at http://www.dancampbellphotography.com/. More soon!

Heidi gets a spot on the US Freestyle Ski Team

2010-01-09T21:28:00.000-08:00

Heidi at the US Ski Team selection event at Winter Park. This is the run that won her a spot on the team.