The start of another year on the World Cup means another season in Europe for American tech skier Nina O’Brien. For the first time in the 23-year-old’s career, O’Brien considers herself a top-15 GS skier after consistently scoring not only in GS, but also in slalom and parallel. With her 2021-22 season opener days away, O’Brien is hopeful for solid early results that will build momentum all the way to what will likely be her Olympic debut in February. 

Reflecting on the previous season, O’Brien attributes much of her World Cup success to the prep period. In a summer of uncertainties and limited travel due to COVID-19 restrictions, more time and focus was spent in the gym than ever before. It was an approach she replicated ahead of the 2021-22 season, taking a full three months off snow for strength and conditioning. After a successful spring camp in California in May, O’Brien didn’t return to snow until Saas-Fee in late August. It was the first summer she had not spent at school or in Park City, but at home, all while following her trainer’s daily program and maintaining an internship with a private equity firm in Denver. 

O’Brien also continued taking online classes for Dartmouth. Once she started her internship, she balanced two-a-day workouts between a nine-to-five job, often including a 5 a.m. wakeup for her first gym session before work, and then facing rush-hour traffic at the end of the day before her second gym session. Meanwhile, teammates Paula Moltzan, AJ Hurt, and Keely Cashman would send Snapchat updates to one another with workout reviews, a consistent motivator as her teammates were doing the same workouts all across the country. By the time she attended the first camp at Saas-Fee in mid-August, O’Brien was shocked at her ability to jump right back into her GS skiing. 

“I’m someone who usually takes a few days to get things going,” she said. “I’m normally half asleep and jet lagged the first few days, so it normally takes me some time to get up to speed. But I felt like I got my GS feeling back pretty quickly, and then from there, our whole group felt like we were skiing well and had some good pace.”

O’Brien maintained momentum throughout the entire prep period, progressing into an indoor-slalom session after Saas-Fee before heading back to Saas-Fee and Soelden prior to the season opener. All the time spent in Europe is a positive for O’Brien, who believes training across different European venues prepares her best for a long season of racing in Europe. Versatility in venues, lane choices, snow, and terrain have been a positive for O’Brien, who reiterates that her training should set her up well for Soelden, especially when it comes to tactical focus on breakovers. 

“For me, breakovers are always something I am trying to get better at,” O’Brien said. “So anytime there is a transition from flat to steep, steep to flat, that’s a good place for me to make sure I’m on my game. Soelden, you never really know where you are at because it’s the first race of the season. Obviously, I’ve had a taste of good GS results and know where I want to be, but at the same time it’s a bit of a mystery for me, at least the first race.” 

Last year, O’Brien had the same uncertain approach entering Soelden, keeping open expectations knowing she was feeling strong and confident in training. She finished 15th, which kickstarted her season’s trajectory to more top-15 and top-10 results across three disciplines, and a second-place GS run behind teammate Mikaela Shiffrin at the world championships. This year, she hopes to continue her momentum by focusing on her best skiing, which she believes is good enough to compete against the best in the world, while not spending too much time getting hung up on results.

“I’m not someone who wants to focus on results, or at least I’m trying not to overthink that,” said O’Brien. “I think in all my breakthrough races I had last year, or even before I was skiing World Cup, was when I was focusing more on the skiing and not overthinking just the results. That’s the attitude I’m trying to bring into this season as well.” 

O’Brien is first to admit the challenge of performing at a high level, how achieving top results brings higher expectations to continue to perform at the same level, or greater. When she focuses solely on her best skiing, she is confident to attack every run and skis her fastest. Feeling confident going into Soelden, O’Brien believes her GS skiing is picking up and is excited to kick off the season. 

“I’m trying to take things one step at a time right now,” expressed O’Brien. “There is a full World Cup season to race, and right now that is right around the corner.”