Updated 3:28 p.m.
The Green Mountain State has its first two winners at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games in Italy.
Fifty years after Bill Koch scored the nation’s first cross-country medal, fellow Vermonter Ben Ogden became the second U.S. man to do so by nabbing silver Tuesday in the men’s sprint before a crowd that included his mother, Andrea — treasurer, assistant clerk and trustee of public funds of their hometown of Landgrove, population 177.
“It’s an unbelievable dream come true,” the 25-year-old member of Stratton’s SMS T2 elite training team (co-founded by Koch) told the New York Times.
Koch, who himself won silver in 1976, watched from Vermont.
“I am so full of emotions,” Koch told VTDigger. “First I wept, then I have been smiling and chuckling ever since. And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
Shortly after, fellow Vermonter Paula Moltzan snagged a bronze medal alongside U.S. teammate Jackie Wiles in the women’s Alpine combined event.
“We asked for a miracle and I think we were delivered one,” the 31-year-old former University of Vermont NCAA champion told USA Today.
Ogden is the fourth generation of family to hail from Landgrove since his great-grandfather, Samuel R., happened upon the once desolate Bennington County hamlet just before the 1929 stock market crash and bought 15 buildings for $4,500.
On Tuesday, the latest Ogden skied in front of an Olympic crowd as family members and friends saw themselves on live television during a watch party NBC broadcast from Richmond.
Also on Ogden’s mind: His father, John, a Middlebury College racer turned local Bill Koch Youth Ski League coach who died of cancer in 2023 at age 56.
“I miss him every single day,” the Olympian told the Boston Globe after his win.
Ogden finished just under a second behind Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo. The 2022 University of Vermont engineering graduate received his silver medal, then performed a celebratory backflip just like he did the first time he landed on a World Cup podium shortly after his father’s death.
“Sometimes in life you have to satisfy your 15-year-old self,” the Olympian, set to turn 26 on Friday, told the Times.
Back in Italy, Moltzan — who just purchased her first house, in Waitsfield — skied fast enough in her slalom run to elevate her combined event team to the podium after colleague Wiles finished fourth in an initial downhill round.
Reporters found themselves surprised, as they had prepared coverage on pre-race favorites Mikaela Shiffrin (also Vermont schooled) and her teammate Breezy Johnson, who didn’t medal.
“It’s a competitive sport,” Moltzan told USA Today. “At the end of the day, they’re our friends.”
