Park City-born Griffin Briley and his Colorado counterpart, Cam Smith of Crested Butte, grinned and joked as they stood on the village cobblestones of Utah’s Solitude Mountain Resort.
By their demeanor, you might not realize that the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games are just over 60 days away.
The two Team USA skiers are here for World Cup Ski Mountaineering, the first ever held in North America. The outcome will determine whether the U.S. or Canada heads to the Olympics. Known as Skimo, ski mountaineering — where skiers first climb the mountain before they race back down — will make its Olympic debut in February.
Only one team from North America gets to go, though.
“They’re our friends and we’ve been racing each other for a long time and they’ve been pushing us to be our best,” the 20-year-old, lanky Briley said, after he sucked back a bowl of hot noodles. “It’d be great to support them if we don’t go to the Olympics, but also, we’re going to give it our best shot.”
Smith knows the stakes are high, but he gave off a happy-go-lucky vibe rather than the sense of a fierce competitor. He likes the pressure.
“These are the moments that we hope for as an athlete, you just want the opportunity to earn what you dream of, and that's what's right in front of us,” Smith said. “We have the opportunity that we wanted, and I'm going to embrace that and enjoy it when we get on the course.”
Competitors from 24 countries are at Solitude, including the one-person team from Azerbaijan who trains in the Caucasus Mountains. Nazrin Garibova was the only team member from Azerbaijan to have her U.S. visa approved, so she’s going it alone, along with her French coach.
“We did have Olympic ambitions, but I don't think we'll be going to Milano Cortina in 2026,” she said. “But Azerbaijan definitely has high hopes for 2030. If things continue at this pace, I'm sure we have a good chance and beyond that.”
Garibova is bubbly and excited to be competing this weekend as part of the tightly-knit Skimo community, throwing her arms around Sarah Cookler, head of sport for the U.S. Ski Mountaineering Association, as if they’re long-lost best friends.
Cookler is the race director for the Big Cottonwood Canyon event. Just a week ago, she could have used another hug. She had doubts the event would even happen due to the lack of snow. But things turned around.
“My thoughts were definitely not very optimistic a week ago, but Solitude has done a remarkable job of making this happen,” she said. “They have 11 snow guns on our race course right now, and we’ll be ready to roll when the international federation comes to start setting the course.”
World Cup Ski Mountaineering runs Dec. 6 for mixed relay and Dec. 7 for sprint at Solitude Mountain Resort.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Pamela McCall: This is the first time Skimo is in the Olympics, so it might not be on everyone's radar. How does it work?
Sarah Cookler: The two short disciplines, the sprint and the mixed relay, are going to be Olympic events. They're very fast and exciting. The skills of skinning, boot packing and downhill skiing are all involved. At the top of the course, the racers rip their skins off and head down on the same skis. In the mixed relay, there will be 12 teams on course at the same time. So you’ll see aggressive elbow-to-elbow skiing. The athletes are going hard the whole time, and there will likely be crashes.
PM: Describe the gear racers use.
SC: The boots are made from carbon and weigh less than a cross country ski boot. As for the skis, they are a similar weight to downhill skis and have metal edges. Once racers reach the top, they click into a fixed-heel binding. They're much more challenging to ski than a downhill ski, though, because they don't have the weight or the camber. The downhill portion of Skimo doesn't always look pretty, but they get it done.
PM: Sounds grueling. What are the athletes' fitness levels?
SC: Their aerobic capacity is bar none. I mean, they have to be able to sprint straight up a hill for 8 to 10 minutes repetitively in different heats. But they also have to have the strength and athleticism to go downhill fast. So it's that combination of Nordic skiers’ aerobic capacity and downhill skiers’ strength.
PM: How do you feel about the winner-takes-all mixed relay race that will decide whether Team USA or Team Canada wins the lone North America slot to compete at the Olympics?
SC: You know, both teams are great and I wish there was an opportunity for everyone to go to the Olympics. Hopefully, in the future, there will be more quota spots. But obviously, the ideal scenario would be for U.S. athletes to stamp a ticket to Milano-Cortina. We’ll have to see what happens.
