April 05, 2012 – Stratton Mountain School is adding an Elite Team this year. Gus Kaeding, an SMS alum who has been coaching with CXC the past two years, will coach this group. The group will work closely with the Stratton Mountain School team as well as the local youth ski league, West River Nordic. Stratton Mountain School Nordic program director, Sverre Caldwell, will oversee and coordinate all of the Stratton programs.

We have two major goals for the program:
1)    Help our skiers achieve International success.
2)    Expose local skiers to top-level athletes.

This will be a community collaborative and should be a win-win situation. The Elite Team will benefit from the energy of the younger skiers and the community support, while the upcoming skiers will be able to train alongside some of the best skiers in the country and the world. By coordinating programs, we will have a clear pathway from youth skiing to Olympic athletes.

We are starting the program with a small, select group and are very excited about the team; They are all good people and strong skiers who are looking forward to training as a team and working with the local programs. We are also working closely with the US Ski Team coaches and are in the process of planning our summer/fall training and camp schedules with their input.

USST Head Coach, Chris Grover, recently congratulated us on the new position and program saying, “This is very cool for SMS and the U.S.A.  We need more strong senior clubs and we are looking forward to working closely with you!”

Over the next month we plan to add 2-3 recent high school skiers to our Post Graduate program. These skiers will be able to train extensively with the Elite Team as well as the SMS team (which was just awarded the prize as the top junior club in the US for the second year in a row). These groups should bring one another and the entire SMS program to a higher level.

“With the final races of the season now over, I’m eager to work with the SMS team. The potential of the team has me really excited and I can’t wait to get the whole group together” – Gus

Here is Stratton Mountain School’s Elite Team…

– Sophie Caldwell
– Eric Packer
– Skyler Davis
– Erika Flowers
– Andy Newell