Keep an eye out for an Eagle County woman in next week’s Olympic Alpine events
Phoebe Heaydon at 4
Phoebe Heaydon told the Vail Daily in 2010 “I like going fast” in order to explain how at age four she was poised to win a NASTAR ski-racing national championship, but then she went on the add that if that career didn’t work out, “I want to make ice cream.”
Turns out the whole ski-racing thing did in fact work out. Heaydon this season, after making her World Cup debut in Levi, Finland, is poised to race for Australia in the Cortina-Milan Winter Olympics in Sunday’s giant slalom and Wednesday’s slalom — a remarkable journey for a 20-year-old from Edwards who dominated Bear Trap at Beaver Creek 15 years ago.
Heaydon’s parents are Australian citizens but permanent residents in the U.S. who moved to Arrowhead about 15 years ago for the lifestyle and so Phoebe and her brother Henry could grow as ski racers. Henry, an All-American at Montana State University, was poised to race in Beijing in 2022 but missed out due to an IOC gender rebalance during a last-minute, COVID-era Olympic rules reshuffling, and then just missed the cut again for Cortina.
Phoebe will have to carry the family banner next week, and her father, Craig Heaydon, said she’s in a good place mentally and physically.
“She got a good result in Europa Cup two weeks ago, so she’s feeling good,” Craig Heaydon said of Phoebe’s two top-30 finishes in Chamonix, France, including 16th in slalom. “And so training’s been going well too (in Cortina).”
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Phoebe was a member of Ski and Snowboard Club Vail for 13 years and graduated from Vail Mountain School, where she was part of a big-time graduating class of ski racers.
“In her graduating year, you had Liv and Kjersti Moritz on the U.S. Ski Team, Phoebe on the Australian Ski Team, and Kaitlin Keane, who at the time was on the U.S. Ski Team,” Craig Heaydon said. “So it’s a pretty sort of special school journey with these girls from first grade through to graduating.”
Craig Heaydon said that for the last couple of years there was quite a bit of family discussion about what nation to represent at the Olympics, if Phoebe were to make the cut.
“She’s made U.S. Ski Team criteria in the last two years, but she’s always wanted to ski for Australia,” Craig said. “She was born in Australia, we’re Australian, so she’s always wanted to ski for Australia, even though her friends are on the U.S. Ski Team and all that. But she’s been happy to go through the journey for Australia.”
Australian ski officials are also happy she made that choice.
“Watching Phoebe’s progression this season, to make her World Cup debut has been fantastic,” Australian Winter Olympic Team Chef de Mission Alisa Camplin said in a press release. “She’s only 20 years old, how great is it to see Australia’s next generation athletes rising to the top?”
Plus, Australia is a ski-mad nation that tends to travel the world to make turns.
“Alpine skiing is one of the most technically challenging winter sports,” Camplin added. “It is also one of the most popular, enjoyed by thousands of Australians across the country. I know there will be a large contingent of Aussies right behind this trio (including fellow Australian Olympians Madison Hoffman and Harry Laidlaw) throughout their Olympic campaign.”
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Craig Heaydon, who was reached by phone in Austria on his way into northern Italy for Sunday’s GS, said it’s been a long, tough journey for Phoebe at times.
“Anyone that gets that level, you just realize all the work that goes into it and the sacrifice that goes into it. It’s enormous — the lack of social life, missing tons of school and all that. It’s a lot of sacrifices that all these athletes go through,” Craig said, adding Phoebe has an Olympic goal.
“She just wants to represent her country at the highest level and do it properly, not just [get] the Instagram photo,” he said.
