What Retirement?

After 13 years, moguls superstar Hannah Kearney stays focused on season

Calling a sports career quits never looked like this. Only two World Cups into the 2015 campaign, Hannah Kearney already has a win — Jan. 3 in Calgary — and a third-place from the World Cup opener in Finland on Dec. 13. She now leads the overall moguls standings.

It all comes on the heels of Kearney’s announcement that she’ll retire from World Cup competition in the spring. Ending on a high note seems to be the best exit strategy.

“You always get the question, ‘Well, are you going to go four more?’ and no, that I can definitely rule out,” Kearney says in a recent interview with SkiRacing.com. “It’s kind of surreal; it doesn’t feel like this is my last year knowing that as I leave each venue it was the last time I will compete there. I try not to look at it that way, because then it becomes a sad, sob story all season long. I do better if I just focus on the task at hand.”

The 2014 Overall podium

That focus is on another overall moguls title, an overall freestyle title, and a world championship gold, defending the one she won in 2013. Kearney already has three overall titles and five moguls titles to her name, and is on her way to pass Donna Weinbrecht for the most World Cup wins in moguls history. With her recent victory in Calgary she now only needs three more wins to match the 46 of Weinbrecht.

“Donna Weinbrecht is the leader and she is the goddess of mogul skiing, so that’s pretty cool,” says Kearney. “It would be amazing, and we have more than four competitions this year so I will keep chugging along. I have to completely block it out and compete.”

And compete she has. During the course of her career, Kearney has notched 65 World Cup podiums, 43 victories and six world championship medals — two gold, a silver and three bronze. Plus two Olympic medals: one gold in 2010 and an emotionally devastating bronze last year in Sochi.

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic podium

“Going into each competition, the goal is to win,” admits Kearney, “but I push that aside, and the goal is to find a way to ski the course the best way I can in a judged sport. That’s what has worked for me through my career, and I’m continuing with it.”

If Kearney breaks the all-time moguls record by the end of the season, she’ll hold two of the most impressive records in all FIS competitions. From January 2011 to February 2012 she didn’t lose a race — a record 16 consecutive victories — passing the Swedish great alpine skier Ingemar Stenmark.

“She’s one of the most decorated mogul skiers, if not skiers, on the U.S. ski team,” says teammate Eliza Outtrim, who is out for the season with a knee injury. “If we competed as often as some of the alpiners do, she would probably be the most decorated athlete on the team.”

Kearney completes one of her signature tricks

Kearney is known on the circuit for her consistency on icy, steep courses, and rising to the occasion on the toughest venues with strong technical skiing. But that wasn’t always the case, and it took an ACL tear in 2007 for her to realize the importance of strength training.

“I won my first World Cup four days before my 18th birthday, in 2004,” says Kearney. “And then for the next few years I would win here and there, but I was all over the map, a very inconsistent skier. When I look back, a lot of it was mental, but most of it was physical strength and training.”

She has since become “obsessed,” as she says, with tracking her numbers and progress. The change in her training habits is apparent in her World Cup results.

“I think I like the gym almost more than the training sometimes,” says Kearney. “Because I like it so much and because I’m kind of a numbers, data-oriented person, I loved tracking my workouts and numbers. That was sort of a turning point for me and immediately I started skiing well and winning competitions.”

Kearney kisses one of her eight globes

Winning is what has kept Kearney going in an extremely physically demanding sport for 13 years. Unlike alpine skiing, in which athletes often gravitate toward speed events as they get older to prevent nagging injuries, moguls skiers have no other outlet. That makes Kearney, almost 29, one of the older athletes on tour.

“It takes quite a bit of commitment to win as many events as Hannah has achieved,” says U.S. Ski Team head moguls coach Garth Hager. “With her level of conviction and dedication, she has focused on eliminating her weaknesses and reducing the variables as much as she could.”

This has spurred Kearney’s competitors to either focus more on their own training, explains Hager, or actually cut their drive to win unless Hannah makes a mistake and opens an opportunity. “Some simply do not want to work as hard as she has,” he says. “One of Hannah’s daily goals is improvement. She is the model of a dedicated competitor geared to win.”

Kearney still gets emotional when talking about her bronze medal at the Sochi Olympics. The clear favorite going into the final run, she bobbled at the bottom of the course, bumping her back to the third step of the podium. Her dream of defending her Olympic gold medal — never achieved in moguls skiing — disappeared.

An emotional Kearney earns the bronze in Sochi

While Kearney insists that missing out on her second gold medal was not the motivation for for one more year, she does acknowledge that had she won, she very well could have called it a career.

“After Sochi, and what was a broken heart for me, there was the realization not everything is going to follow a Hollywood script,” says Kearney. “It definitely made me feel like I still had something I could prove.”

Kearey’s next competition will take place at Deer Valley, one of her favorite venues. She’s won the last four competitions held on the long, steep, challenging hill, known for its tight turns and long middle section.

“My strengths are my turns, so when there are some intricacies in the turns themselves, it seems to highlight skiers who are very balanced and have good control,” says Kearney, adding that other perks include top-notch food and lodging, and the huge crowds.

The American women swept the 2013 Deer Valley podium

Kearney’s dad was in the Deer Valley crowd during her 100th World Cup event, which she says is one of her greatest memories, along with leading an American sweep of the podium in 2013.

Then there are the moments she will gladly leave behind, such as the aerobic-capacity training sessions up the mountain, and the logistics of traveling with loads of moguls skiing gear.

“I’m not going to miss the 2 a.m. alarm clocks; I’m not going to miss trying to drag my ski bags through the airport,” she says with a laugh. “Trying to get my bags to weigh exactly 50 pounds…those are the little things I won’t miss. Plus bodily pain, or fear, but I’m sure I’ll find new ways to do both of those things.”

She plans to attend Westminster College in the spring on the USSA/Westminster grant program after transferring from Dartmouth College, where she recently completed her freshman year. Kearney has yet to decide on a major, but she hopes that school will guide her to an area that combines her interests.

Kearney is now looking ahead to school, and what’s next.

“I’m hoping that school will help me expose myself to new ideas that get me excited about the next thing,” says Kearney. “I know that my strengths are organizing; I like bossing people around and I like animals and I like food, so some medley of that. I hope school helps me figure out what’s next.”