Tour talk with America’s Katie Hitchcock

U.S. alpiner Katie Hitchcock is as laidback as can be, but this Cali girl will smoke you at any sport including skiing.
    Case in point No. 1: Last weekend in Davos, Switzerland, “Hitchy” had the best performance out of the U.S. Europa Cup squad placing second in the super combined and third in the super G.
U.S. ALPINER KATIE HITCHCOCK is as laidback as can be, but this Cali girl will smoke you at any sport including skiing.
    Case in point No. 1: Last weekend in Davos, Switzerland, “Hitchy” had the best performance out of the U.S. Europa Cup squad placing second in the super combined and third in the super G.
    “It was definitely a break through for me,” she said. “I have been having a bit of trouble racing well so it felt great to finally do it on race day.
    Case in point No. 2: Golfing. Her “Happy Gilmore” shot, you know the one — running full bore at the tee and swinging as hard as you can — well, she can actually do it. It was debatable last summer whether that ball went 300 or 500 yards. Either way, she cracked it.
    Case in point No. 3: She was the only girl on her baseball team until 8th grade, and not the only girl but an All-Star pitcher.
    Over a Skype video call last fall, Ski Racing got a peak into the Hitchcock family in Sacramento, Calif. While “Hitchy” was drinking her favorite Talking Rain grapefruit sparkling water — “Have you had this? It’s so good,” she said — her dad, Phil Hitchcock, all of a sudden yells, “She pitched so hard that all the fathers went home and taught they’re boys how to knit.”
    Maybe all this sporting action and family influence explains why Hitchy is a top U.S. ski racer.
    Hitchcock competed in 52 races in 11 countries last season, winning FIS-B races in France (GS), Switzerland (slalom) and at season's end in her home state (GS). She also competed in her first World Cup races — in slalom, giant slalom, super G and super combined. Last weekend’s performance in the Davos Europa Cup got Hitchcock an invite to compete in St. Moritz for the World Cup super G. With renewed confidence, Hitchcock figured she would ski aggressively and not hold back, but it proved to be too much.
    “I went out at the top of the course like 26 seconds in,” she said. “I was bummed to go out but it is better to got out givin’ her then not and being disappointed with the way that I was skiing. The super Gs definitely helped with my skiing. It was a good reassurance that I can ski well.”
    The 22-year-old picked up skiing early when her family would take weekend trips to Tahoe “to keep her brothers out of jail,” Phil Hitchcock jokingly yelled at the computer — again. Then in high school, Hitchy headed to the Tahoe area fulltime to go to the Sugar Bowl Academy where she honed in her racing skills.
    Sometimes Hitchy does more laughing than talking. Skype instant messenger recipients get a lot of “ha ha’s” when they chat with her in Europe or wherever skiing may take her, or she’ll bark a  booming “shooooot” if she’s frustrated or joking. Otherwise, she is pretty tight lipped about skiing. Right now she is concentrating on consistently doing well.
    “I need to make top 45 in the world to make the ski team again next year,” she said. She currently is sitting in the top 100 in the world in slalom, GS and super G.
    Of all the sports, ski racing is her favorite. She has stuck with it because it was an individual sport unlike baseball, soccer and all the other sports she naturally picked up (golf excluded) as a young kid.
    “Soccer was just annoying, the politics and everything,” she said about that team sport. “I had fun with skiing because it’s so different and we’re all crazy and I think that’s entertaining. We really are — a little loopy.”