Athlete Bios
Freestyle Skiing- Skicross
Alpine's Puckett dominates skicross
Last Updated: Monday, February 8, 2010 | 1:27 PM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
Casey Puckett of the USA competes at the FIS Freestyle Grand Prix on February 5, 2009 at Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver, B.C., Canada. (Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)Casey Puckett is a four-time Olympic alpine racer for the United States ski team and six-time national champion.
After his retirement from downhill racing in 2002, Puckett began a second career racing in the emerging freestyle discipline of skicross. He soon dominated his new sport, winning a gold medal at the X Games.
A native of Colorado, Puckett began skiing when he was three years old. Under the guidance of his mother, who was the coach of the Crested Butte ski program, Puckett developed as a prodigy, competing in his first Olympics in 1992, in Albertville, France, when he was 19. He competed in three more Winter Games, in slalom, giant slalom and combined.
But with a hard-charging style, Puckett often crashed out of his races, and his best result was a seventh-place finish in slalom at the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway. After another disappointing result at the 2002 Salt Lake Games, in which he crashed out of the combined, Puckett quit World Cup racing.
While working as a ski instructor in Aspen, Colo., Puckett began competing in skicross.
“It was a hobby, just like if you’re going to join a softball league after work,” he said.
A freestyle discipline, skicross features four or more skiers racing head-to-head down a course filled with obstacles, similar to a motocross track. Racers are often sent flying through the air in spectacular crashes. Although skicross required some adjustments, with his background in Alpine racing, Puckett found he was faster than most competitors.
Puckett was invited to compete when the Winter X Games relocated to Aspen in 2003. He finished 13th, but had fun and showed up again in 2004, and won. He won again in 2007, charging out of the gate in the final, grabbing a lead he never relinquished and holding on despite a late surge from another competitor who tumbled across the finish line in second place.
For Puckett, the potential for disaster is a big part of the appeal of skicross.
“Americans like their crashes,” he once said. “They also like skicross because, unlike alpine racing, which has a lot of technicalities, our race is simple to understand: first one upright at the end gets the trophy.”
Television exposure at the Winter X Games, combined with the growth of skicross, has raised Puckett’s profile. He has won the sport’s professional tour three times.
At 37, he is one of only two members of the United States skicross team and remains a favourite to win when the sport makes its debut at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. “Skicross gives me another, more likely shot at Olympic gold,” he has said.
