Park City moguls skier Nick Page knows what it’s like to be a bright-eyed kid watching the freestyle skiing World Cup event at Deer Valley Resort. Not too long ago, he was one of them.
“I’d be the kid running up to every athlete I saw, trying to ask for an autograph or a picture,” he said. “Last year and the year before, when I got to actually kind of step into that role and be the athlete that people were running up to me. I was like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on? I’ve always been on the other side of the story. Now I’m on this side.'”
Page, the homegrown talent who grew up skiing for Wasatch Freestyle, will be making a return trip home for January’s World Cup at Deer Valley. The 19-year-old is in his third season on the World Cup circuit and is currently in 16th place in overall moguls.
“It’s by far my favorite event every year, just because Deer Valley puts on such a good event for it,” Page said. “You get a big crowd, you get skiing on really the hardest course that we see all year. And it’s really where we can showcase some of our best stuff as a sport.”
At the same time, he’s hoping to solidify his case to go to the Olympics, as the two moguls events at Deer Valley will be the final two qualifying events before the Beijing Games in February.
“Part of me kind of expected it to be much more stressful in times, and sometimes it’s like, no, it’s actually not much different than what I’d be used to normally,” Page said of competing this winter with a trip to the Olympics on the line. “I’m still going into every start gate, (a) person is still counting down three-two-one, go. And I’m just trying to ski the very best run I can, which is nice.”
Page grew up skiing Deer Valley’s Champion run, where the annual World Cup is staged and which was also used in the 2002 Games. He estimates that he’s traversed that run thousands of times, meaning he’ll be well prepared when he stands atop when it counts.
“Close to six days a week, I was out there from noon to four, when the mountain closed, just running laps on it, trying to get better and better and better,” Page said.
Page is one of three former Wasatch Freestyle skiers in the top 20 of the overall moguls World Cup standings, alongside Bradley Wilson and Cole McDonald. Having a venue like Deer Valley in their backyard has certainly helped the skiers.
“We’re all right in there fighting with each other, which is really fun,” Page said. “It’s really cool, especially when 75% of the men we’ve had on World Cup have all come from Park City so far. It’s like, that’s pretty cool. We have good odds for having a full Park City Olympic team.”
Page is coming off his best finish of the season with a ninth-place result in Alpe d’Huez, France, on Dec. 17. After a few weeks off from competitions, the moguls World Cup circuit starts back up in Canada before moving to Deer Valley. Page said he’s starting to see a lot more improvement in his skiing after an offseason’s worth of hard work. With the Olympics just around the corner, it’s a good sign.
“It’s been really because you put in so much work to try to get better, try to improve in every way I can,” Page said. “And then to start kind of seeing the results and then actually start seeing more of the confidence where I know I am getting better, it’s really, really cool to see all that work paying off.”