Shelburne aerial skier Megan Nick won a bronze medal in her Olympic debut at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.
The 25-year-old Champlain Valley Union High School graduate spun, somersaulted and scored Monday amid minus-10 degree temperatures to become the first American to place on the women’s freestyle podium in a quarter-century.
“I was just trying to be extremely present and grateful that I was even there,” Nick told reporters after her win. “No expectations — only wanting to compete the way that I’ve been training.”
Nick was a competitive gymnast at Champlain Valley Union High School until age 17, when a coach told her about a one-week aerial ski training camp at the site of the 1932 and 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.
“When I started the sport, I was really unfamiliar with this high level of competing,” Nick told reporters. “I was so focused on results, and it didn’t work. I realized that as long as I was having fun, and I was focusing on the jumps that I was doing, it was working out better for me. So I tried to shift my perspective in the last three years, and it’s really helped me a lot.”
Nick finished the last two World Cup seasons ranked in the top six overall, which helped her medal Monday alongside Xu Mengtao of China and Hanna Huskova of Belarus.
“I thought I was going to throw up, but I was able to calm my nerves enough to land some jumps, thank goodness,” Nick said. “Everyone’s jumping at such a high level that I knew I had to put down a good jump. I’m just relieved that I was able to do that.”
Nick also benefited when U.S. teammate Ashley Caldwell, a four-time Olympian and gold medalist, stumbled on the landing of her last run.
“Knowing that I was in third and she got knocked to fourth,” Nick said, “was a bittersweet moment.”
But Caldwell only had good words when she hugged her teammate after.
“I’m so proud of Megan Nick,” Caldwell said.
Find out how to watch the two dozen athletes with Vermont ties here.
