Profile: Olympic Mogul Skier Patrick Deneen
Part Cowboy, Part Stampede
By Diane Rudholm
Photo at right: Patrick Deneen flips through the air during a World Cup mogul competition at Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah. Photo by Steven Kornreich
Olympic mogul skier Patrick Deneen of Cle Elum, Washington, is one part cowboy and one part downhill stampede. This 26-year-old athlete powers through moguls at three turns per second—snow billowing behind him—then flips through the air fearlessly, landing with momentum, precision and grace.
An Early Start
Deneen first stepped into a pair of skis when he was 11 months old—the same time many kids are learning to walk.
As the family legend goes, his father bought young Patrick the smallest skis available—and the smallest boots, which were padded with newspaper to fit his small feet. He glided down a gentle slope with his family encouraging him on, and what do you know? Something clicked.
Deneen competed in alpine skiing until he was 12. That’s when he discovered moguls.
The Road to Sochi
Patrick Deneen. Photo by Sarah Brunson, courtesy of the U.S. Ski Team
“All I wanted to do was ski moguls,” Deneen says. The fast-paced sport had him hooked, and by the time he was 16 years old, he had landed a spot on the U.S. Junior Ski Team. He went on to become the 2008 FIS World Cup Rookie of the Year and then World Championships gold medalist in 2009.
Deneen made his Olympic debut at the age of 23 in the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games where he says of his 19th place finish: “It wasn’t my night. I crashed on the final run.”
Deneen placed sixth in the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, which he says was also a disappointment. Entering the competition he was among the top three in the world standings and was laser-focused on earning a podium spot.
“I raised my skills as much as possible,” Deneen says of training for the 2014 Games. “It’s hard to train for unknown conditions. There was hard snow, which worked out well for me. And, then there was slush, which did not.”
It wasn’t all disappointment at the end of the Games, though.
“In Sochi after the Olympics we got about a foot of powder snow,” remembers Deneen. The area was closed off to the public, so the athletes had access to first tracks. It was a welcomed chance to just play after the competition.
Training Matters
There’s no question that competing in the Olympic Games is a serious feat, but training is how you get there, and how you train and think matters.
“With moguls, everything is difficult!” Deneen laughs. “When you’re standing at the top you think, ‘How am I supposed to get through this?’ It may look impossible at the top but you’ve got years of training and muscle memory.
“Your core has to be strong,” he adds. “You have to have that stability to help protect the spine, and your muscles need to be firing in the back and core.”
He also explains that “in training you spend a lot of time warming up, especially after long flights. You have to do everything you can to minimize injury.”
Deneen has a village of excellent coaches who help him achieve his goals—including his dad, Pat Deneen, who is an avid skier and a former co-owner and General Manager of Hyak Ski Area, now called Summit East at Snoqualmie Pass.
He also receives training support and physical therapy through programs offered at Olympic Physical Therapy in Seattle, and he has a coach at Winter Park in Colorado.
Deneen’s training sessions vary from day to day, based on specific goals.
“Some days we focus solely on air (no moguls), skiing a long section into a jump or just skiing between jumps,” he says. “Whenever you put together a plan, you just don’t know how it’s going to be. You have an idea of what you want to accomplish (for that session), but you have to be open to the snow conditions that are there.”
Getting Back on the Horse
Patrick Deneen catching some air at the 2013 Freestyle Skiing World Cup at Deer Valley, Utah. Photo by Sarah Brunson, courtesy of the U.S. Ski Team
Last spring, Deneen had knee surgery, but his perseverance in rehab had him getting in some turns in July on Mt. Hood. He then spent some time on his family’s horse ranch (his horse’s name is Spud) and then journeyed to Chile for an August training camp.
“Chile was having a drier than usual winter, which could have meant that we would have to cut training camp short,” says Deneen. Luckily for him and his companions, a fluke snowstorm rolled in allowing the group to stay for the duration of training and get a bonus of skiing three feet of powder.
Taking over the World (Cup)!
During Deneen’s mogul career, he has wrangled 12 World Cup mogul medals (one gold, five silver and six bronze) and seven World Cup dual-mogul medals (three gold, three silver and one bronze).
This year he will put his post-surgery training to the test during the first of this season’s Freestyle Skiing World Cup events on Dec. 13 in Ruka, Finland.
What he is most looking forward to, though, is the January World Cup event in Deer Valley, Utah.
While Deneen will still be a couple of states away from his home, horses and dogs in Washington, he says that it will be good to compete on U.S. soil.
“You can’t beat that Utah weather,” he smiles.
Learn more about Patrick Deneen here: freestyle.usskiteam.com/athletes/patrick-deneen
Diane Rudholm is the managing editor and social media manager of OutdoorsNW.
