Two regional athletes team up at Olympics
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CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy – AJ Hurt and Keely Cashman combined forces at the Milano Cortina Olympics in the Alpine Skiing Women’s Team Combined event on Tuesday, Feb. 10, at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre.
Ahead of the competition, the duo posted a series of photos illustrating their years of friendship and many mountainsides together. With Hurt from Carnelian Bay and Cashman out of Strawberry, Calif., the two grew up skiing together in the Tahoe region under the coaching of Cashman’s father.
Their post reads, “Olympic team combined tomorrow. Somehow they let us be partners. We are still deciding who will race which event, let us know in the comments what you think! To our fans, thank you. To our competition #bescared #lfg #teamusa #olympics #mewing.”
In the team competition, national pairs of skiers compete against pairs from other countries with one team member racing the downhill event and the other racing slalom.
26-year-old Cashman opened the competition for the pair with her downhill run, recovering from a precarious one leg landing to finish the course.
Next, it was 25-year-old Hurt’s opportunity to race the slalom leg.
Hurt put down an aggressive and clean race in the slalom competition, beating the prior fastest time from Czechia by 1.39 seconds.
Cashman, wearing a cowgirl hat donning “Team USA,” greeted her friend at the bottom of the course with a hug.
At the conclusion of the competition, the pair’s combined time placed them in 15th.
Cashman and Hurt raced alongside a deep field of U.S. teammates, including the highly decorated Mikaela Shiffrin, who was paired with recently crowned downhill Olympic gold medalist Breezy Johnson. Shiffrin and Johnson placed just outside of podium with their fourth place finish, bested by teammates, Jacqueline Wiles and Paula Moltzan, who won bronze.
Austria won gold, followed by Germany with silver.
Another regional competitor, Nina O’Brien, was slated to race the slalom portion in the combined event. However, her teammate, Isabella Wright’s deviation from the downhill course resulted in a DNF (did not finish) for the pair and meant O’Brien could not ski.
