My First Time: Andy Newell

Catching up with a local Olympic skier.

Andy Newell took to cross-country skiing early in life. Growing up in southern Vermont, he skipped the bunny trails and began competitively racing at age six. He continued on to high school at the Stratton Mountain School, a ski academy where Nordic practices outweigh math and science classes. It was at the academy where Andy realized he had a shot at going to the Olympics.

I distinctly remember feeling limitless and free, even at a young age, and just seeing how fast I could go on my own. —Andy Newell

Now, years later, he’s a four-time Olympian and a full-time coach at Bridger Ski Foundation, where he’s kickstarted an Olympic-development program. One of his main coaching tenets is to encourage his athletes, of all ages, to develop a healthy relationship with competition. He tells them to stop focusing on what place they’re in, and to live in the present by considering their form, being aware, and having fun. It’s something that dates back to his own formative years, when he was just getting into the sport.

Tell us Andy, about falling in love with Nordic skiing.
I was on skis by the time I could walk. Neither of my parents were skiers, but they had moved to Vermont and got me and my siblings into it. As the youngest, I was always playing catch-up. I remember early on, maybe five years old, Nordic practice with our club often revolved around skiing through the woods and collecting different treats that the coaches would put out in the snow. There was this tree at the ski area known as the “lollipop tree” and coaches stuck lollipops in it as bait to get all the little kids to ski out there.

It was about a kilometer each way and a really cool spot. I was probably with a group of eight or ten kids. I definitely remember getting a lollipop. And I distinctly remember feeling limitless and free, even at a young age, and just seeing how fast I could go on my own. Being able to ski around with my friends, doing a big loop in the woods—that limitless freedom, I just saw it as a beautiful thing early on. As for what flavor lollipop I picked, it was probably strawberry, or one of those classics with a tootsie roll in the middle.