With the 2026 Winter Olympics just a few months away, the road to the games is ramping up today as Copper Mountain plays host to the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Season.
The event will attract hundreds of skiers from around the world as well as many athletes raised and trained in Colorado, including Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin.
Vonn, who came out of retirement in November 2024, is looking to make her fifth Winter Olympics. Copper Mountain is where the 41-year-old raced for the first time in over five years last season. She finished 24th at the FIS Fall Festival in December 2024. Vonn is an 82-time World Cup winner, and she’s won three Olympic medals, including gold in the downhill in Vancouver.
Schiffrin will race in her home state for the first time since 2017. The Vail product already has two big wins in the slalom in Levi, Finland, and Gurgl, Austria, this season. The 30-year-old has won two golds and a silver in three Olympic appearances. She’s hoping to rebound in Milano-Cortina d’Ampezzo after not medaling in 2022.
The 2025 Stifel Copper Cup marks the first time that a World Cup event will be held at Copper Mountain, the only resort in Colorado designated as an Olympic Training site.
Five Coloradans on the Stifel U.S. Alpine Ski Team are starting their World Cup season and their journey to Milano-Cortina d’Ampezzo. Stifel is a banking company that sponsors Team USA.
The 2025-2026 Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup season mostly takes place in Europe. But this season includes a couple of North American stops in Colorado. The Copper Cup on the Athlete’s Mountain from Nov. 27-30, featuring men’s and women’s events. Next week, the Stifel Birds of Prey will be held at Beaver Creek from Dec. 4-7, featuring only men’s competitions.
Team USA will have 11 spots for women and six spots for men for the Milano-Cortina d’Ampezzo games. The men could earn more spots towards the Winter Olympics based on their performances during the World Cup circuit. The final date to fill quotas is Jan. 18. The U.S. Olympic Alpine Ski Team will be officially named on Jan 19 and 20.
River Radamus of Edwards, CO.
No one is more eager to get back to the Olympics than River Radamus. Hailing from Edwards, Colorado, Raamus barely missed the podium — by one-tenth of a second — at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, placing fourth in the men’s team giant slalom and 15th in the Super G.
“On one hand, I think I outperformed other people's expectations. But on the other hand, I was so close to a lifelong dream,” Radamus said. “So, I'd be lying if I said I haven't been thinking about that moment for the last four years. You never know if you'll get another chance at this. I'm going to lay it all out there this year, hopefully make it to the Olympics, and then see what happens.”
Radamus is in his tenth year representing Team USA on the international level. His parents, Aldo and Sara, have been ski coaches for 30 years. He’s a three-time gold medalist at the Youth Olympic Games and a two-time gold medalist at the Junior World Championships.
And the 2023-2024 season was his most successful season to date. He placed third in giant slalom at the Stifel Palisades Tahoe Cup and won team gold at the 2023 World Championships.
Since Beijing, Radamus has founded the ARCO Foundation that makes the sport accessible to skiers.
“To be able to pursue a dream and pursue being the best in the world at something is a driving force that wakes me up early in the morning. Every morning. We spend about 250 days a year on snow,” Radamus said. “The rest of the time we're basically in the gym. So, it's a full-time job, especially for American ski racers, with most of the season over in Europe. We're travelling away from home most of the year.”
Kyle Negomir of Littleton
“I think having both (Colorado events) is super unique and a kind of experience that not many people get to have,” said Kyle Negomir, who’s in his seventh year with Team USA. “So, I'm trying to enjoy that part of it as well and realize how lucky I am to get a race at the highest level and live out my dreams in places that I'm so familiar with — and that I can have friends and family come out and watch.”
Negomir is looking to make his first Winter Olympics after growing up skiing at Copper Mountain.
Up until his junior year, Negomir wasn’t skiing full-time. While living in the Denver area, he was driving up to the mountains to train and returning in time for afternoon classes and football practice at Dakota Ridge High School. He eventually finished high school at the Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy. After graduating, Negroni took a year to improve his times. Eventually he was offered a spot on the Dartmouth College ski team and earned a spot on the U.S. ski team.
Excelling in all disciplines, 2019 was a big year for Negomir. He won the team event at the World Championships and the overall championship on the NorAm circuit. In 2023, he scored his first World Cup point in the super-G and won the Super-G national championship title at the U.S. Alpine Ski National Championships.
Two years before the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Negomir suffered injuries from a crash during a training round before the season’s first race. He said he pushed hard to qualify for the Games.
“That's every kid's dream. And that didn't happen. I was just fighting pain every day. And I think that was super tough for me, and I had to sort of make a decision about how to go about this,” he said. “Is this worth fighting through the pain every day? Is it realistic that I can actually do this again?”
Negormir decided to take some time off to fully recover. He credits his team and support system for helping him return to the sport for the 2022-2023 season, where he made his full-time World Cup debut. In his first race back on the circuit, he turned in the best result of his career, a 23rd-place finish. After scoring in the top 30 a few more times, he represented Team USA in the World Championships for the first time and finished in 17th place.
Despite battling sickness and injuries the following season, Negomir showed improvement with finishes in the top 15 and top 20 on the World Cup circuit. He was also ranked among the top 30 skiers in the world in the Super-G.
Now, he’s seeking to qualify in the Super G for Milano-Cortina d’Ampezzo. He’s said the pressure is on the USA when it comes to international competition.
“When we come to the World Cup circuit, it's always hard,” Negomir said. “We're always racing against everyone in the world. But there's this sort of extra level of — not stress — but just excitement about everything and extra depth of meaning that makes you want to push to take that extra risk to ski that little bit harder line and really put it all out there and see what you can do.”
Bridger Gile of Aspen
Bridger Gile won the Stifel U.S. Alpine Ski award for Best Comeback for Men for the 2024-2025 season.
He grew up racing with the Aspen Valley Ski Club and Ski and Snowboard Club Vail and fell in love with the sport. Gile won the NorAm Overall Championship in 2020 and was a U.S. Alpine Ski champion in the giant slalom. He competed in the World Juniors in 2019 and made his World Cup debut in the GS in 2020.
But during the 2022-2023 season, he herniated a disc in his back. That took him out for most of that season. Giles slowly got back into the sport two years ago.
“I kind of had to start from scratch,” said Gile, who is in his sixth year with Team USA. “I had to start back at the NorAm level and try to get a starting spot for the World Cups through that.”
Last season, Gile made it to his first World Championships, where he finished 19th and placed 23rd on the World Cup circuit. Gile said those results have been building throughout the season.
“Just being away from it for so long, it makes you miss it and just gives you time to think and realize what you need to get better, and it just kind of brings the love of the sport back,” Gile said. “It makes you realize what you have going on, and it's easier to work hard for it.”
Liv and Kjersti Moritz of Edwards
Kjersti Moritz is one of two young Colorado skiers competing in the Copper Cup who aren’t expected to go to Milano-Cortina d’Ampezzo. But she could surprise spectators.
Moritz comes from Edwards and is in her fourth year with the team. She began competing on skis with slope style, halfpipe, and alpine before focusing solely on alpine skiing, specializing in slalom.
She collected five top 10 results on the NorAm circuit during the 2022 season. During the 2024-2025 NorAm circuit season, Moritz had multiple top-five results, including fourth in the Lake Louise GS and fifth in the Burke Mountain slalom.
Moritz is currently a sophomore on the Middlebury College’s ski team. She earned Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association Rookie of the Year and Second-Team All-East honors last season. The multisport athlete also plays center midfield and center forward on the Lady Panthers soccer team.
“I think that soccer has really helped me progress my slalom because it's very technical, very agile,” Mortiz said. “You need a lot of agility for it. I think that's why I'm the best at it right now and why it's my favorite.”
She qualified for the NCAA Championships but did not compete. Instead, she chose to compete at the FIS Alpine Junior World Ski Championships in Tarvisio, Italy. She finished in eighth place for the slalom and seventh for the women’s team event with Logan Grosdidier of Washington, who skis out of Steamboat Springs.
“The food was really good. The atmosphere was really good. It was sunny most every day. The snow was really good. It was actually amazing,” Moritz said. “And just to place eighth there, I wasn't really expecting it. And also, my twin sister was there too, which made it really special.”
Moritz’s twin sister, Liv, also skis for Team USA. Like Kjersti, she competes on skiing and soccer teams in college. But she decided to stay close to home and attend the University of Denver. Liv will also compete in the Copper Cup. Kjersti plans to ski for Middlebury this season while focusing on the NorAm and Europa circuits.
Tanner Perkins of Crested Butte
Tanner Perkins is in his first year with the team. Born in Maine, his family moved to Florida, Texas, and Grand Junction before finally settling in Crested Butte. Perkins began skiing when he was seven years old at Powderhorn Mountain in the local Buddy Werner program. From age 16 to 20, he trained at the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club. He even lived in a van during COVID in order to travel and race.
“It wasn't easy. The year that I lived in a van, I skied well, but I didn't ski great. I got to the end of that year, and I didn't make the US ski team, and I didn't have a college team to go to,” Perkins said.
Perkins stepped away from the sport to focus on school full-time. With the dream of skiing for Team USA on the back burner, he kept up his fire/EMS certifications while racing and worked part-time on ambulances, rescue teams, and fire departments. Perkins went on to study paramedicine and remote rescue at the University of Utah. Then, someone saw potential and donated $20,000 to help him pursue his dream.
“She wanted to see me keep skiing, and because of that I was able to ski through that college year. I made World Juniors and then was recruited by Montana State after that season,” Perkins said. “So really, that's kind of the only reason I'm still here — is because of other people, and I'm really grateful for the state.”
Perkins competed in the Junior World Ski Championships in 2022 and finished ranked in the Top 15 in giant slalom in the NCAA Western Region during the 2021-2022 season. He has had multiple podium finishes in the NorAm circuit and earned a World Cup start in the Super-G.
Perkins, who works part-time with the Livingston Fire and Rescue in Montana, is taking the year off from competing at Montana State to focus on his first World Cup season. He said if he skis well during the Copper Cup, he’ll compete at Birds of Prey.
