World Champion and Full-Time Student

Alpine Ski Racer
Olympian
World Champion 2023
Full-time Student

So reads the Instagram profile of Laurence St-Germain. The Canadian slalom star earned her computer science degree from The University of Vermont (UVM) in 2019 after racing four years on the NCAA tour with an Olympics in between. Now, she is halfway through a second degree in bioengineering at Polytechnique Montréal. 

While home between her two training camps in Chile, St-Germain dove into the three classes she is taking during the fall term, one fewer than last fall. She took a moment to reflect on her experience as a World Champion and a full-time student. 

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THE FIGURATIVE BLUR

When St-Germain looks back on her gold medal day, “a lot of it was a blur,” she says. By now, she has pieced it together with some clarity and perspective. She can see what went right and wrong, why nothing derailed her and how procrastination—when it comes to performing under pressure—may be her superpower. 

Coming into the World Champs, St-Germain had never finished higher than 6th on the world stage but had been fast in training. When she went through the finish on the first run of the SL, with Bib 18, she first had to search for the timing board. When she saw the #3, her first thought was: “I’m going to be so nervous for the 2nd run.” 

Teammate Ali Nullmeyer, already in the finish, was there to address St-Germain’s anxiety immediately. “She told me that I had been skiing the same in training, and I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, so I shouldn’t be stressed. I just have to do the same as I’ve been doing. That actually really helped me to calm myself down.” On another occasion, Nullmeyer had shared this observation with St-Germain: “Well, obviously, you’re good under pressure. You’re the biggest procrastinator!”
 
Here, the breadth of St-Germain’s maturity and experience came to the fore. “Other than the World Champs, I think the races where I’ve been the most stressed were the NCAAs, 100%. So, I think that was a huge, huge preparation for me. Every time I got myself thinking about the position and how I could have a medal, I just thought about the second run and just tried to focus on what was coming instead of what could happen.” She did that by visualizing the course and confirming her race plan. She forced herself to joke with her trainer and physio—to lighten everyone’s tension. 

THE LITERAL BLUR

It almost worked without a hitch. Usually, St-Germain keeps her goggles in her bib and puts them on at the last minute. For some reason, fortunately, with four or five racers to go, she pulled them down, only to find them blurry. When she put them back up, and her trainer and physio saw her wide eyes, they nearly hit the panic button. St-Germain suddenly remembered she had put in a new lens and left the plastic on. With just enough time, the plastic came off and the crisis was averted. Once on course, she made an early mistake before a terrain change. Rather than panicking, it snapped her back into focus. “It was probably even a good mistake. It really got me attacking even more.” Through the finish, she was once again unclear where she stood. “My eyes are so bad. I couldn’t tell if it was a 1 or an 11.” 

When she realized she’d secured a medal, she no longer paid attention to the race. “In my head, everything was done. I had my medal and I kind of forgot that the race was still going.” She only knew Holdener had skied out because the reactions of her teammates Nullmeyer and Amelia Smart. As Shiffrin, leader from the first run, took to the course, the FIS officials dragged the podium cushion out and herded St-Germain and Lena Duerr into position. “I asked Lena which side I had to go to, and she’s the one who pointed out, ‘She’s only .2 ahead of you—you might get this’, and in my head, I was like, Mikaela always crushes the bottom. She’s gonna win by a second.” After Shiffrin crossed the line in second, “I don’t really remember anything until the national anthem.”

THE AFTER BLUR

Then came the accelerated blur: getting to drug testing, then to the press conference (when she finally had time to take off her ski boots), then to the gondola to make an appearance at the previously planned après-ski celebration at La Folie Douce with teammates and fellow competitors. “I was there for like 15 minutes. That was perfect.”
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The next stop was the official awards ceremony in town, then on to another hotel for dinner (finally) and a Zoom call with the Canadian press. At that point, a car accident in the parking garage brought everything to a screeching halt. Fortunately, she arrived at the hotel just in time for the call, still having eaten nothing but a few granola bars from her bag since the race. 

By 7 a.m. the next day, St-Germain was en route back to Montreal in time for a Monday media day and then, on Tuesday, a midterm in molecular biochem. She explains that when planning her season, that midterm schedule had seemed like perfect timing. “In the end, it was not so perfect timing because my plan was to study on the plane for most of my exams.” Instead, she slept and read the messages blowing up her phone.  

BALANCING ACT

As crazy as that stretch was, St-Germain likes the balance of pursuing academics and athletics together. It’s a juggling act that goes back to 2014 when she started racing for UVM with her older brother Will. Both of them had been kicked off the Canadian junior team and felt like they had unfulfilled potential. That season, her last as a junior, Laurence hoped to qualify for the 2015 World Junior Championships. When she was not chosen for that, and considering that the national team criteria for someone her age seemed impossible, she shifted her aspiration to enjoying the rest of her career as a college skier. “I kind of let go a little bit,” she recalls. At the NorAm Finals that spring, she scored two podiums, cut her FIS points to 7 and requalified for the Canadian team. 

Once back on the team, St-Germain’s dreams returned to the forefront. She did it all, winning the NCAA SL and GS titles, competing in the World Championships and graduating from UVM all in 2019. Partway through, however, she was second-guessing her Computer Science major, wanting to find something she felt more passionate about. “I found the biomedical engineering degree and I felt like it was checking all the boxes of technology, but more on the computer side, biomechanics and the body, and of how I could really do different things.” 

She estimates she’ll be done in three or four years, mainly taking in-person classes, depending on what classes offer the needed flexibility. “My goal is to have just one year left after I’m done skiing, which would be probably around the next [Olympic] games.” 

SMART COMPANY

St-Germain is in good company on her team. Amelia Smart, who graduated from University of Denver in 2021 with a double major in Environmental Science and Computer Science, is now pursuing her Master’s in Water Security. Nullmeyer graduated summa cum laude from Middlebury College with an economics degree last spring. Racing on the World Cup and the NCAA circuit simultaneously was initially pioneered in Canada by athletes Trevor Philp, Erik Read and Elli Terwiel. St-Germain admits it adds logistical complications, and while Alpine Canada may not enjoy it, they support it. “The coaches are super helpful. They’re really, really good.” Now that she is “only” racing one ski circuit, accommodating the academics feels relatively uncomplicated. 

“I obviously like school. I wouldn’t be doing my second degree if I didn’t think it brings me a lot of balance, which helps in my skiing,” says St-Germain. How the self-reported procrastinator gets it done is also insightful. St-Germain approaches her academics as a daily habit. “I don’t really have weekends. I have to do a little bit every day. Otherwise, if I don’t do any school for two days in a row, then I already get behind. So I just have to do a little bit every day.” 

Her dream job would be in biomimetics, a science that translates principles in the natural world into human engineering. Designers use it to create things such as prostheses that imitate human movement. “My goal would be to try to help people be active and be able to do whatever they want. It applies to sport and just being able to be active.” In the meantime, her day job is going very, very well. St-Germain and her team head back to Chile later this month, then to an indoor on-snow session before the first World Cup in Levi, Finland.