Alpine nationals: Nerves don't derail Ciccone

Caitlin Ciccone admitted to battling a case of nerves entering Monday’s giant slalom at the U.S. Alpine Championships.
    Just how much did the 22-year-old New Hampshire native yearn to defend the GS title she had won last season close to her home turf at Sugarloaf?
ALYESKA RESORT, Alaska — Caitlin Ciccone admitted to battling a case of nerves entering Monday’s giant slalom at the U.S. Alpine Championships.
    Just how much did the 22-year-old New Hampshire native yearn to defend the GS title she had won last season close to her home turf at Sugarloaf?
    “A lot. It was a lot because I hadn’t been in that situation before,” Ciccone said. “But that’s the mental part I’ve taught myself. You just have to go out and do what you do every day, it’s just another training run. If you think about the result you’re not going to do well.”
    Ciccone said she simply focused on her skiing during the race, and it paid off big. Sitting third after the first run behind reigning Olympic GS gold medalist Julia Mancuso and Jessica Kelley, Ciccone couldn’t pass a hard-charging Resi Stiegler the second time down and saw the chance at defending her title evaporate. But when Kelley and Mancuso failed to overtake her, Ciccone had a second-straight podium finish in the nationals GS and a spectacular finish to a solid week of racing on midwinter-type snow in Alaska.
    Ciccone leaves Alyeska with three top-10 finishes, including a seventh in downhill and fourth in the slalom. A DNF in the super G was her only hiccup this week.
    “It’s always fun to come back to nationals, and I think now that I’ve won it makes it … yeah, it’s definitely a confidence booster, you know you can do it,” Ciccone said.  
    “It’s definitely a confidence-booster going into next year knowing I still have [confidence]. It was a close race and anything could happen.”
    Ciccone spent most of this past season racing FIS-level races, NorAms and Europa Cup events with a mixed level of success. She was a frequent top-10 finisher in NorAm and FIS-level tech races, and she punched in a few top 15s on the Europa Cup. Making that next jump to be able to compete with Mancuso and others on the World Cup, Ciccone said, means taming the nerves at events with a lower-stress level like nationals.
    “I was definitely feeling the nerves today. But that’s part of progressing in skiing too, at different levels, to just be able to say, ‘Yeah, I’m nervous, but it doesn’t matter,’” she said. “You just have to go and ski how I can ski because if you let things get in the way you get a little shaky and don’t always go on your ski, you hold back or something and it makes it that much harder.”
    Ciccone said she likes the fact titles are on the line in what almost amounts to a glorified training session at nationals. Similar start numbers help level the playing field for racers like Ciccone, a U.S. C team member, against a World Cup standout like Mancuso.
    “Racing Julia, she [starts] 1 through 8 every race, and I run 50 — my points aren’t as good — so it’s tough because you don’t get to compare yourself on that basis,” Ciccone said. “But here — yeah, Julia is a little tired from the season probably — but she still wants to win. So it’s cool to ski at the same level. We all know we can.”