With the 2014 Olympic Winter Games less than a month away, athletes are competing in the final qualifying events on the world stage for the chance to go to the Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Olympic Sport: Slopestyle snowboarding
Hometown: Truckee & Anchorage, Alaska
Resort Team: Auburn Ski Club
If you’ve had the pleasure of living in Tahoe for a few years, you’ve probably heard lots of inspiring and quirky stories of how people somehow ended up in our little peace of paradise. Unlike most locations, it’s rare to find someone who moved to Tahoe because of a job. More common is something along the lines of “I was driving across the country, had car trouble on Interstate 80, saw how beautiful it was here, and never left.”
Many winter athletes, however, make their way to the Tahoe region because this is where they will find a lot of other folks stoked on pushing their limits, and coaches who are dedicated to making those athletes a success. Alaskan-born snowboarder Ryan Stassel began his journey towards Tahoe at 13-years-old when he participated in a race at Northstar, and met a coach that would eventually become influential in turning him into a champion snowboarder.
Recently, Stassel was named to the United States Snowboard Team. When we spoke in mid-December he was finishing competition in the first of five events, which would determine which athletes will represent the United States in snowboarding at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Who qualifies is decided based on each athlete’s top two results from the five events. Stassel says that the challenge is not only to win the events, but also to beat out the talented group of other Americans who are attempting to qualify.
Stassel competes in Slopestyle snowboarding. Slopestyle athletes take runs down a course with jumps and rails. They are judged based on style, amplitude (how high off the snow they get), difficulty and the combination of everything, what Stassel calls, the overall package. Stassel says the key is how you flow down the hill and transfer from one feature to the next.
Stassel began snowboarding at the age of 5 in his home in Anchorage, Alaska. He would take the bus after school to Hilltop, the small hometown hill just on the edge of the city. Eventually, he made it to the big mountain of Alyeska, about 45 minutes south of Anchorage. He began competing at the age of 13 in USA Snowboarding Association events and was invited to the Nationals at Northstar at Tahoe. It was Stassel’s first introduction to Tahoe and he won his age bracket. There, he met Auburn Ski Club coach Bylan Omlin, who became an important influence on his snowboarding career, and part of his decision to move to the Tahoe region.
When he graduated from high school, Stassel began spending his winters in Truckee, training with the Auburn Ski Club and spending a lot of time on the hill at Boreal. Stassel likes Boreal’s small size because it enables him to get a lot of fast laps in, and get back up the mountain quickly for another ride.
While Alaska is blessed with beauty and snow, to compete in snowboard events with the rest of the United States, Stassel had to fly long distances at great expense. Fortunately, his teachers let him take the time away from his studies, as long as he made up the work when he returned. To pay for those trips, however, he had to get out on the water.
While Stassel spends his winters sliding down the snow in the Sierra, in the summer he is on the waters of Alaska fishing for King and Red Salmon. His family runs a commercial fishing operation, bringing in thousands of pounds of fish to the Alaskan canning operations.
“Fishing in the summer paid for traveling,” Stassel says. “My Dad said if you want to be a snowboarder you have to work for it. So, I worked my butt off to make the money to go snowboard.”
While the work is hard, it gives Stassel a chance to spend time with his family, including his fellow snowboarding sister, as his entire family is involved in the summer fishing business.
When it comes to his thoughts about the Winter Olympics, Stassel is trying not to have them.
“I would be speechless to make the team, but I have to go one contest at a time. Focus in the now, and not get caught up in what can happen. Trying to keep it in the right attitude. You just have to follow the flow of the hill and hope that it all comes together. You never know when and where the big fish or the big jump will show up.”
