USST's Alison Powers retires; seven-year veteran plans to coach juniors

USST’s Alison Powers retires; seven-year veteran plans to coach juniors{mosimage}Alison Powers, a seven-year veteran of the U.S. Ski Team, has decided to retire from the sport, citing a loss of desire after several seasons of injuries. Powers, a speed specialist from Winter Park, Colorado, called it quits after this season’s World Cup races in Haus, Austria.

‘I’m so glad to be done’ says Powers, visiting with family in South Carolina as her former teammates endured sub-zero temperatures at World Cups in Sweden. ‘I just didn’t have the desire anymore. I didn’t want to be best in the world. It’s very, very nice to be done. Being done after Haus was a huge relief.’

Powers says she’ll spend the spring working toward getting certified as a personal trainer. She has already begun to teach exercise classes twice a week in Winter Park. Next fall, she hopes to coach ski racing, preferably at a ski academy in the eastern United States. ‘I’d like to work with FIS athletes’ says Powers. ‘And I’d like to work with girls, because I understand girls.’

Asked if she’d attend this year’s U.S. National Championships in Alyeska, Alaska, Powers said it was unlikely. But she will help to coach some Winter Park athletes at the J-2 National Championships — a new event this season, held in Lake Placid, New York.

The mid-season retirement was a surprise to many, but Powers had decided on it earlier in the season. ‘I wanted to come back this year to race Haus’ she says. ‘And once I’d done that I knew I could walk away happy.’ Haus, Austria is where Powers raced a World Cup in 2001, was leading at the late intervals, and fell near the finish, breaking her knee cap.

At this season’s Haus race — where her teammate Kirsten Clark had a season-ending injury — Powers lost her pole when she hit a panel. ‘I was so distracted by my pole being gone, I went much too straight at the second to last gate and missed the last gate. That gate was right where I injured myself three years ago. I skied though the finish, turned around and flipped off the hill. You can see on the TV feed.’