TETER: The Jeff Spicoli type. |
With her shock of bright blond hair peeking out from under one of her many winter hats, Hannah Teter looked like a bird of a different color in the refined Winter Olympic milieu in Torino. However, her gold-medal win on the half-pipe showed that this 19 year old wasn’t messing around. She is a rising star both on the snow and in the public eye. Raised in Belmont, Vermont, the youngest of five children and the only girl, Teter grew accustomed to following her brothers on their adventures, from skateboarding on their home-built half-pipe to snowboarding at nearby Okemo mountain. Brothers Abe and Elijah also went pro as snowboarders, and Hannah benefited from playing catch-up with them, becoming the first woman to perform a 900 in competition. She also won gold at the 2004 Winter X games before winning the gold in 2006 in Torino, where during the final, she secured a medal in the first of her two runs.
On the subsequent post-victory talk-show circuit, Teter gained notoriety as one of snowboarding’s strongest personalities, likened to Fast Times at Ridgemont High character Jeff Spicoli by some reporters who covered the 2006 games. Although she competes in a sport marketed to an amped-up, exuberant young audience, she’s also been known to do yoga or meditate (her family’s Vermont home was near a Benedictine monk community), and she continues to enjoy the family tradition of maple sugaring. She recently started a charity called Hannah’s Gold, a partnership with the Christian relief organization World Vision. The charity sends proceeds from sales of the Teter family maple syrup to benefit poor children in Africa. (For more information, visit hannahsgold.com)
Kirsten Clark
CLARK: Recovered for ’07. |
At 29, Clark has built an impressive résumé of skiing accomplishments: three-time Olympian, World Cup and World Championship winner, and the only American to win four consecutive US downhill championships. Clark grew up in Raymond, Maine. She was skiing by age three and racing at seven. Known for her speed as a downhill racer, she attended Carabasset Valley Academy (CVA), a small boarding and day school near the Sugarloaf ski resort. With a curriculum devoted to scholar-athletes who spend serious time on the slopes, CVA counts world-class ski and snowboard instructors among its staff. The school’s Web site touts its alumni victories by Clark, Bode Miller, and Seth Wescott the way other prep schools would promote their National Merit finalists.
Although an Olympic medal has eluded Clark in her three trips to the big stage, the fact that she was even competing in the most recent games was a small victory on its own. She spent much of the 2004 season recovering from a devastating crash in Austria, where she suffered multiple injuries, including a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament, which connects thighbone to shinbone) that required a prolonged rehab. An infection following knee surgery in 2005 put Clark in the hospital, but she still performed well enough last season to make it to Torino, where she finished 14th in the Super-G. Clark continues to ski at a top level and is on the roster for the 2007 US Alpine team.
