Ritchie Photo: GEPA pictures/Harald Steiner

Like all ski racers, Benjamin Ritchie has always relished going fast. However, what he’s always loved most about the sport is making turns.

No surprise, then, that slalom is his strong suit.

Growing up in Williston, VT, Ritchie’s earliest memories of skiing involved staying in a small cabin at Jay Peak with his parents and older brother.

“In the cabin, we didn’t have any internet or TV,” Ritchie says. “We’d wake up and go ski from when the lift opened to when it closed. We’d come back and have dinner and my brother and I would spend all night sledding, snowboarding, hiking up and down the mountain. I always loved spending time in the snow doing that stuff.”

When Ritchie was 6 years old and his brother 12, they both tried racing with Jay Peak Ski Club. One day was enough for his brother. Ritchie loved it from the first gate.

“When we got to training gates, everyone always says they like going fast. What I liked the most about it was the feeling of making a good turn and seeing yourself improve. It’s really fun to go fast, but making a good turn is the best feeling ever.”

Ritchie’s dad, who he describes as a “decently high-level triathlete,” worked 9 to 5 as an electrician and, along with his mother, skied recreationally when the opportunity presented itself. Although Ritchie displayed an early aptitude for the sport, his parents never pushed him through any stage of his development

Self-driven to success

“They never said, you need to do this, or you need to travel. They just told me to work hard, try my best, have fun with it and good things will come from that,” he says. “It was never a disappointment if I did badly. It was more, are you enjoying it? Did you give it your best?’”

The lack of pressure fueled an extra dose of self-motivation. Attending Green Mountain Valley School, Ritchie did extra workouts when he was younger and discovered a deep internal drive to succeed. It worked.

In 2016, at age 16, Ritchie earned a spot as the only American competing in St. Moritz, Switzerland’s prestigious Longines Future Champions race. He went up against the top U16 skier from every alpine nation in the world. He finished second. By the following season, he was steadily winning FIS slalom races throughout North America and, by 2018, winning Nor-Am races. He competed in his first Junior World Championships in 2019 and took second.

“It was unexpected,” he says of his teenage success. “I thought if I had a good day, I could do it. I think I had the ability. I believed in myself. It ended up working out.”

World Cup regular

From that point forward, he was on to the big time. Ritchie became a regular on the World Cup slalom circuit in January 2020. Although it would take him a couple of years to notch his first top 25 finish in slalom, he placed 13th at his first World Championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2021 and, later that season, skied to seventh place in the team parallel event at World Cup Finals. His crowning achievement, however, was his slalom gold medal in the 2021 World Juniors Championships.

He names these World Championship results his “easy” career highlights. However, there have been incremental, unassuming moments every season that make him feel lucky to be alive and doing what he’s doing.

“We have such a good slalom group right now. It’s a lot of fun being with that group every day,” the 23-year-old says. “Even if we never raced, which is the most fun thing, the process is fun, from the coaches to the other athletes, the service guys. We have fun when we’re training and not training. We’re like a family. I spend more time with them than I spend with anyone else. We’re getting a lot better, too.”

What lies ahead

At the end of summer, the Stifel U.S. Slalom Team wrapped up a camp in Ushuaia, Argentina, during which Ritchie felt he had a breakthrough in training. The team will spend the fall training on snow in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, and elsewhere in Europe.

“Ushuaia was a lot of fun for me. I was skiing well. When you have a good camp like that, it’s rewarding because you feel that all the time and work is paying off a little bit,” Ritchie says.

Looking forward to this season, the Vermont athlete plans to continue building consistency in World Cup slalom (his top results last season were 26th and 23rd) and move up the ranks in GS.

“Looking at it, I’ve had a solid career up to this point, but it doesn’t feel like that to me. I feel I have a lot more to show than what I’ve shown already. I have a lot better results in me. I know it’s not all about the results, but I’m really excited for the World Cup slaloms this year and to show what I’ve been working on.”