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Tag: aerials

  • ‘Dying to Ask’ podcast: Visualize your life like an Olympian with Chris Lillis

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    Saying Chris Lillis is a details guy is like saying he kind of wants to win another Olympic gold medal. Lillis won gold in mixed team aerials at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. Making a second Olympic team in his discipline of freestyle skiing is arguably more mental than physical. Tracking the details of how he eats, sleeps, trains and recovers is crucial to unlocking what does and doesn’t work for him as an athlete. The data helps shape his mindset training. The key to mental preparation is visualization.Chris says, “Visualization can just be like a kind of mental imagination, whether it’s in the first person or the third person. You really just imagine yourself doing that jump.” Aerialists are like acrobats on skis. They ski down a ramp, launch themselves in the air and complete a series of flips and twists while maintaining enough spatial awareness to land on on snow. Jumps last seconds. But Chris says the time in the air feels a lot longer than that because of how in tune he is with every small move his body makes. Just making the 2026 Olympic Team isn’t enough. “It’s different when you’ve won before because the only question anyone has for you is, are you going to win again? My answer is always the same. It’s yes,” says Chris. On this Dying to Ask: What it’s like to live your life with that much attention to detailThe move Chris had to make to follow his Olympic dream and how he spends his summersGoing from newbie to veteran. The importance of mentoring the next generation of OlympiansAnd how to master the art of visualization like an Olympic athleteOther places to listenCLICK HERE to listen on iTunesCLICK HERE to listen on StitcherCLICK HERE to listen on SpotifySee more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    PARK CITY, Utah —

    Saying Chris Lillis is a details guy is like saying he kind of wants to win another Olympic gold medal.

    Lillis won gold in mixed team aerials at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.

    Making a second Olympic team in his discipline of freestyle skiing is arguably more mental than physical.

    Tracking the details of how he eats, sleeps, trains and recovers is crucial to unlocking what does and doesn’t work for him as an athlete.

    The data helps shape his mindset training. The key to mental preparation is visualization.

    Chris says, “Visualization can just be like a kind of mental imagination, whether it’s in the first person or the third person. You really just imagine yourself doing that jump.”

    Aerialists are like acrobats on skis. They ski down a ramp, launch themselves in the air and complete a series of flips and twists while maintaining enough spatial awareness to land on on snow.

    Jumps last seconds. But Chris says the time in the air feels a lot longer than that because of how in tune he is with every small move his body makes.

    Just making the 2026 Olympic Team isn’t enough.

    “It’s different when you’ve won before because the only question anyone has for you is, are you going to win again? My answer is always the same. It’s yes,” says Chris.

    On this Dying to Ask:

    • What it’s like to live your life with that much attention to detail
    • The move Chris had to make to follow his Olympic dream and how he spends his summers
    • Going from newbie to veteran. The importance of mentoring the next generation of Olympians
    • And how to master the art of visualization like an Olympic athlete

    Other places to listen

    CLICK HERE to listen on iTunes
    CLICK HERE to listen on Stitcher
    CLICK HERE to listen on Spotify

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • Freestyle skier Quinn Dehlinger’s Olympic dream takes flight

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    Freestyle skier Quinn Dehlinger punched his Olympic ticket eight months before most of his fellow 2026 Olympians. Dehlinger found out last June that he’d earned a spot in the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. It was a huge relief after he barely missed out on making the 2022 Beijing Team. It was a game-changer, mentally, heading into World Cup races this season.”Going into the competitions this year, if I got sick or had a minor injury, it lifted a little of the weight off the shoulders,” Dehlinger said. Dehlinger lives in Park City, Utah, where aerial skiers train year-round at the Utah Olympic Park. But he grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, skiing at Perfect North Slopes.It’s a far cry from the mountains out west. But it’s become a pipeline for aerial athletes. In fact, four skiers on the national team are from the Cincinnati area.Top aerial skiers spend their summers in Park City training at the Spence Eccles Olympic Freestyle Pool. The pool is aerated. Skiers go off plastic jumps similar to a regular ski jump. The aerated water provides a soft, safe landing and pushes skiers to the surface. The only hitch? Skiers have to hike more than 100 stairs to get to the top of the ramp.Aerialists are often called acrobats on skis. They rely on strength, flexibility and visualization techniques.”When you’re going down that jump at 45 miles an hour, and it’s 14 feet tall and 71 degrees, it looks like a wall of ice,” Dehlinger said. “You’re visualizing dropping your arms in a specific spot so that it either speeds up your twist or stops your twist, or helps you slow down your flip, or just controls everything.”Dehlinger said fans often get one thing wrong about his sport.”The biggest misconception is that we just don’t get scared. We do get scared, but we just deal with a different way. We just push it down and do what we need to do,” Dehlinger said. And what Dehlinger needs to do now is get to the top of the ramp at Milan-Cortina. He’s already visualizing gold and ready to find out if he’s got what it takes. The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games start Feb. 6.

    Freestyle skier Quinn Dehlinger punched his Olympic ticket eight months before most of his fellow 2026 Olympians.

    Dehlinger found out last June that he’d earned a spot in the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. It was a huge relief after he barely missed out on making the 2022 Beijing Team.

    It was a game-changer, mentally, heading into World Cup races this season.

    “Going into the competitions this year, if I got sick or had a minor injury, it lifted a little of the weight off the shoulders,” Dehlinger said.

    Dehlinger lives in Park City, Utah, where aerial skiers train year-round at the Utah Olympic Park. But he grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, skiing at Perfect North Slopes.

    It’s a far cry from the mountains out west. But it’s become a pipeline for aerial athletes. In fact, four skiers on the national team are from the Cincinnati area.

    Top aerial skiers spend their summers in Park City training at the Spence Eccles Olympic Freestyle Pool. The pool is aerated. Skiers go off plastic jumps similar to a regular ski jump. The aerated water provides a soft, safe landing and pushes skiers to the surface.

    The only hitch? Skiers have to hike more than 100 stairs to get to the top of the ramp.

    Aerialists are often called acrobats on skis. They rely on strength, flexibility and visualization techniques.

    “When you’re going down that jump at 45 miles an hour, and it’s 14 feet tall and 71 degrees, it looks like a wall of ice,” Dehlinger said. “You’re visualizing dropping your arms in a specific spot so that it either speeds up your twist or stops your twist, or helps you slow down your flip, or just controls everything.”

    Dehlinger said fans often get one thing wrong about his sport.

    “The biggest misconception is that we just don’t get scared. We do get scared, but we just deal with a different way. We just push it down and do what we need to do,” Dehlinger said.

    And what Dehlinger needs to do now is get to the top of the ramp at Milan-Cortina. He’s already visualizing gold and ready to find out if he’s got what it takes.

    The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games start Feb. 6.

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  • Aussie Danielle Scott ends World Cup drought just before Winter Olympics

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    Australian aerial skier Danielle Scott has broken through for her first World Cup triumph in nearly three years in a timely boost to her medal hopes at next month’s Winter Olympics.

    The 35-year-old three-time Olympian has had a particularly lean run this season but put her woes behind her with a morale-boosting triumph at Lake Placid in the United States less than a month before the start of the Games in Italy.

    Scott scored 95.88 points in the super final to take top spot ahead of China’s reigning Olympic champion Xu Mengtai, who scored 94.01. 

    America’s 2025 world champion, Kaila Kuhn, was third with 92.29.

    Laura Peel, who won the last World Cup event in Canada, was unable to stick her landing and finished sixth, while fellow Australian Airleigh Frigo was seventh.

    “I’m just letting this sink in. I’ve had a rough run this season,” said Scott, with the victory her first in a World Cup event since March 2023 and the seventh of her career.

    “A lot of highs and lows … today I just needed to go prove myself, and I did that, so I’m stoked.”

    Danielle Scott won her first World Cup event since March 2023. (Getty Images: Al Bello)

    With four out of six skiers in the medal round attempting triples, Scott’s choice of a back double full-full proved a smart decision after assessing the tricky conditions of the day.

    “I was hoping to do triples, and we made some hard decisions and decided to keep it on the double. I think it paid off,” she said.

    “I want to do them, so let’s get Mother Nature on our side.”

    In the men’s competition, China’s Wang Xindi opted to go with five twists.

    Despite the conditions, he was rewarded with a win.

    With landings proving to be challenging for many athletes, his back double full-full-double full earned a 103.50 and his first World Cup win of the season.

    Competitors will line up for another World Cup at Lake Placid on Monday (local time) to wrap up their preparation for the Milan-Cortina Games, which start on February 6.

    AAP

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