A special visit with gold medal winner Donna Weinbrecht

This week the Women's Initiative at Killington Mountain School hosted guest speaker and friend, Donna Weinbrecht. Donna, a New Jersey native whose parents had a house near Killington when she was growing up, holds the distinguished title of being the first gold medalist in her sport, ever. She won gold in the 1992 Olympics in mogul skiing, a new sport added to the Olympic games that year. Weinbrecht came to talk to the group about her athletic experience, the Olympics, life after the Olympics, and her other interests outside skiing which include a passion for art.

The girls really enjoyed getting to talk to Donna, ask questions, and hear her athletic and life stories. KMS senior and mogul athlete Hannah Soar gave her take on the evening, "I know Donna, so it was cool to listen to her talk. There were a lot of similarities I could connect to when she spoke, like what we think about in the gate at the start of a run, being thankful for the opportunity to just to be there competing at events, looking at a course and thinking how sick it is, and just feeling appreciation for getting to do what you love." Hannah continued, "It's amazing that she was the first Olympic medalist ever in mogul skiing, I didn't realize how much her career was the peaked at that point. In a way, she reminds me of myself and many people tell me that. We both have blonde hair that whips behind us as we ski bumps, and people say when they ski me skiing Outer Limits that I remind them of her. I like her a lot, and I was psyched for my teammates and friends to get to know more about her."

Cycling athlete Aliza Tobias commented that it was cool to hear Weinbrecht talk about coming back after winning the Olympics. She said "It was interesting to hear that even the top athletes struggle with the same things that everyone does. It was really eye opening."

Many thanks to Donna for sharing her stories with the strong female student-athletes at KMS. What a wonderful opportunity for our students to relate to such an inspirational legend!