Shauna Farnell
Photo: GEPA pictures
Aiming for consistency, patience is a virtue for AJ Hurt
The third bout of COVID-19 has delayed AJ Hurt’s training trip to New Zealand. Nonetheless, she will get there. Taking things as they come and patience is something she’s getting pretty good at. All things considered, it’s been the only proven formula for success in her ski racing career thus far.
After all, the 21-year-old from Tahoe, CA, has skied World Cup for more than three years, taking one DNF or DNQ after another until she finally landed her first points. The points came at the World Cup parallel race in Austria in November 2020. A few weeks later, she followed it up with an 18th in the World Cup giant slalom in Courchevel, France, which remains as her top Cup result to date. However, when asked what changed, there was no power breakfast, special pep talk or lucky socks involved.
A hard smack can help
“The only thing I remember that was different that day was that I fell out of the car in the morning. It was icy and I slipped. I hit my head a little and thought I hurt my knee. I didn’t do the free ski. I took like four Advil before the race,” she recalls. “Since then, my technician always jokes that before a race all he needs do to help me ski well is give me a good smack.”
After a couple of World Cup top 30s in super G, another in GS and one in slalom, Hurt closed out the 2021 season in a big way with a bronze medal in the Junior World Ski Championship slalom in Bansko, Bulgaria. When asked to explain the recipe for any semblance of consistency, all she can do is shrug.
“I wish I knew,” she says. “Every time I think I’ve found it, it doesn’t work the next time. I guess a lot of it comes with age and maturity. Also having been to all these tracks before and knowing where you can send it and hold back definitely helps.”
Hurt experiences a season of milestones
Although consistency was not a defining characteristic of last season, it proved to be a huge steppingstone for Hurt. It began immediately when she launched into the season with 20th place in the GS opener in Soelden.
“Soelden was awesome, after four years of racing at the World Cup, to finally have two runs I was proud of,” she says, adding that the achievement boosted her confidence throughout the season. “Even if you’re struggling for parts of the season, I could look back and say, ‘I know I can do this because I did it in Soelden.’”
Despite continued success and points earned in Lech/Zürs and Courchevel as well as in the last couple of GS races in Åre, Sweden and Lenzerheide, Switzerland, a large portion of Hurt’s World Cup season was again stamped with DNFs and DNQs. But the National Championships provided another boost for the Tahoe native, as she wrapped up the season with podiums in the U.S. giant slalom and slalom races and won the Dutch National Championship slalom and giant slalom races held in Austria in March.
“Those races weren’t stacked with Austrians, but they were good for me. I really needed points at that time, but I wasn’t the only one desperate for points. There were a lot of us running around,” she says.
Olympic debut
Hurt’s most rewarding, memorable and motivating event last season was the Beijing Olympics. Although she DNFed in the GS and finished 34th in slalom, the entire experience, strained as it was with strict pandemic-enforced rules, made her hungry for more.
“The Olympics were pretty big,” she says. “It was so awesome to go and represent the U.S., even if my skiing wasn’t totally amazing. It was just cool to be around everyone, staying in the village together. We couldn’t have spectators and family because of Covid, but that part of it was kind of fun, that it was just athletes. It was a unique bonding experience. The only other people in our village were the bobsledders and lugers. It was fascinating to learn about their sport. It was cool to learn how other athletes approach things.”
Hurt’s approach
Regarding her approach to the upcoming season, despite overcoming Covid (again), Hurt is pumped up from several weeks of dryland training in Park City, UT and eager to hit the snow.
“At this point, I’m mostly focused on slalom and GS. I would like to do more super G, but I can save that for the future and focus on a good tech background first. I’m hoping for more and more consistency with that, moving up and breaking into that top 30 on the start list, specifically in GS, then try to find any consistency in slalom,” she says.
She is bummed that women will be left out of the upcoming World Cup races at her home snow in Palisades. However, Hurt believes that her lifelong experience of skiing the Sierra mountains has set her up as a versatile skier.
“I think there’s such an advantage to being from Tahoe,” she says. “Growing up, we just skied the mountain, lapped KT [Palisades’ KT-22 Chairlift that takes passengers to steep terrain covering 1,800 vertical feet] from 9 to 3. You learn how to ski anything. You’ll hit every type of terrain.”
After on-snow training in New Zealand and competing in the ANC races at the end of August, Hurt is looking forward to joining her U.S. Teammates in attending Paula Moltzan’s wedding in September before more training and launching back onto the World Cup, starting with Soelden in October and hopefully continuing to the 2023 World Championships in Méribel, both places and courses on which she can now boast a successful track record.
Goals
“I feel like having goals that are too specific can make it hard and frustrating,” Hurt says. “Focusing first on process-oriented goals helps me. I feel what probably works best for me is having a good prep period, feeling confident in myself and my skiing and not like I’m scrambling the few training sessions before a race. I’m going to be set up well this season.”
