Pizza and La Parva with Caitlin Ciccone

It's natural for Caitlin Ciccone to grab a bite to eat at The Sidecar pizzeria in Park City, Utah — at least when she’s in town. She has a lifetime membership and there is a pizza named in her honor after all — the Madonna — for Madonna “Ciccone,” yeah, Madonna’s last name.
Ciccone just got back from 2 ½ weeks in La Parva, Chile, training as part of a 10-girl group on the U.S. alpine B and C teams — Leanne Smith, Katie Hitchcock, Laurel Carter, Sterling Grant, Hailey Duke, Kiley Staples and Ciccone on the tech side, and Chelsea Marshall, Julia Littman and Keely Kelleher on the speed side — who ski on the Europa Cup. And this 22-year-old fireball had plenty to say.

IT'S NATURAL FOR CAITLIN CICCONE to grab a bite to eat at The Sidecar pizzeria in Park City, Utah — at least when she’s in town. She has a lifetime membership and there is a pizza named in her honor after all — the Madonna — for Madonna “Ciccone,” yeah, Madonna’s last name.
    Ciccone just got back from 2 ½ weeks in La Parva, Chile, training as part of a 10-girl group on the U.S. alpine B and C teams — Leanne Smith, Katie Hitchcock, Laurel Carter, Sterling Grant, Hailey Duke, Kiley Staples and Ciccone on the tech side, and Chelsea Marshall, Julia Littman, Keely Kelleher on the speed side — who ski on the Europa Cup. And this 22-year-old fireball had plenty to say.
    “I had the most fun I had on a trip — 10 girls with different personalities, all we had was fun,” she said while eating her signature slice that consisted of spinach, pineapple, goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. (She had just completed a mountain bike ride at Deer Valley and a few holes of twilight golf). As a B team member, Ciccone bounces back and forth between training with the World Cup and Europa Cup girls. She nabbed three top-10 finishes last season at U.S. nationals at Alyeska, Alaska, including silver in the GS. She hadn’t spent much time with Smith and some of the others, so it was a refreshing new experience, Ciccone said. Each morning the girls hit the hill around 6:45 a.m. until about 10 a.m. where they did four to six runs of super G or downhill, according to Ciccone. Then they came in for dulce de leche crepes — the hands-down favorite meal of the group. After lunch they headed out around 11 a.m. for another session, which was either slalom or GS, then “creeped” out on MySpace or Facebook, took lots of pictures, played cards, had some art sessions, and concluded with a little dryland training such as “butt’s up.”
    “That was hilarious,” Ciccone said. “Nobody knew what we were doing when one girl was against the wall and 10 girls and one guy [Europa Cup head coach Jeff Fergus] were chucking a ball as hard as we could at the girl bent over on the wall. Good times.”
    They also spent some time spinning on the bike, did some freeskiing and walked around. “There were a lot of other teams down there as well to meet up and hang out with in the afternoon,” she said. “The altitude is super high so the training is really taxing and sometimes the afternoons [included] just a walk.”
    Ciccone said the snow was OK, but deteriorating quickly, which might give the development team heading there some problems.
Overall Ciccone, who hopes to do well at time trials before the World Cup opener in Sölden, Austria, Oct. 27-28, in hopes of skiing more regularly on the World Cup circuit, said this camp was a great beginning to her season. She felt fit after spending the summer rehabbing her MCL, which she tore training at Mammoth Mountain, Calif., in May with the national team. She also liked her new Völkl/Tecnica setup, and saw plenty of gains in the group.
    "On the slalom side we have a lot of girls skiing really well," she said. "it is cool to ski with a group so excited about skiing and up there every day pushing each other. We have serious potential for this year. We have 2,3 and 4 from nationals slalom and a really strong GS group as well. It was really cool to help some of the younger girls out and see changes in everyone's skiing. We made a lot of gains. it was really cool to see, that doesn't always happen!"
    After a satisfying slice of Madonna back at the pizzeria, Ciccone was contemplative about the upcoming season. "I’m going to rip,” she confidently said.