Ski and Snowboard Club Vail mogul skier earns first World Cup starts

Nash Lucas has skied at Deer Valley and Waterville Valley before. The former is the NorAm season-opener every year, and the latter was the site of his first U.S. nationals.

“A little sentimental value there,” he said. Additional emotional value will be attached to the Ski and Snowboard Club Vail mogul skier’s return trip to the New Hampshire venue on Jan. 26. That event will be the 21-year-old’s first World Cup start.

“It’s a huge deal,” Lucas said. “It’s kind of something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time now. I’ve watched not only my inspirations (but) people I grew up skiing with do it. It’s something I’ve been looking to accomplish, and I finally made it happen.”

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Lucas “made it happen” with back-to-back mogul and dual moguls victories at the U.S. Selections in Winter Park on Dec. 16 and 17. While FIS typically grants the U.S. six quota spots at international World Cups, host countries receive an additional three. Lucas will also compete at Deer Valley, the site of the 2002 Olympic Games mogul competition, on Feb. 1-3.

“This was a definitive statement event for Nash,” said SSCV mogul coach Freddy Mooney. “He’s worked really hard this off season, making some key changes to his jumps and in the gym.”

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Lucas said he wasn’t worried about adding degrees of difficulty, per se, but needed to “take a scrubbing brush” to those tricks. Over the summer, he spent extra time at the water ramping facility in Steamboat Springs.

“Just doing repetitions, fixing little things on the takeoff,” he said. “How I land, if I’m doing a grab, how I show it off — all that built up to Chile.”

This fall, Mooney and his team traveled south of the equator to train, where Lucas reassembled his aerial packages on snow.

“The timing was ideal, and the camp worked ideally,” he said of the time in Chile. “The quality, as well as quantity, of the training we got down there was amazing, and it showed in how prepared our team was for this early event. With nobody in North America having had any real opportunity to train a full course this fall, we were at a huge advantage by having been on a full course a month ago in Chile.”

In addition to Lucas’ win, fellow SSCV athletes Porter Huff, Jiah Cohen and Garrett Marley placed third, fourth and seventh, respectively in the individual moguls. Huff, Cohen and Marley went 3-4-5 on the duals day.

“This was an extremely competitive field, and filling four of the top-5 spots is absolutely unreal,” Mooney said. “The whole crew has been training really hard, and I’m very proud of all of them.”

Lucas said the relationship with Marley, who is two years older, is one where both athletes push each other.

“We go back and forth every event,” he said. 

“It’s really nice having him (there). We’ll sit down with the iPad, watch every run. Up on the course, we’ll talk tactics with each other. It’s nice having someone who is skiing at the same level as I am — even a little better — and really review these things with and get a second opinion on.” 

In Waterville Valley and Deer Valley, Lucas will likely compete alongside SSCV alumnus Dylan Walczyk. The two-time Olympian finished seventh at the Bakuriani, Georgia, individual mogul World Cup on Friday and is currently 15th in the overall moguls standings. During the COVID pandemic, the pair struck up a relationship when Walczyk invited Lucas to camp with him in Oregon while both trained at Mt. Hood.

“And from it turned into a traditional thing,” Lucas said. “We’ve done it the last few years. We both have camping trailers. We drive out together, set up together, cook together.”

As for expectations going into his World Cup debut, Lucas’ goal is simple.

“Just put down a run,” he said.

“A lot of times, kids go to the first World Cup, they get into their own heads, and they end completely blowing it,” he continued.

“So, for me, it’s going to be mostly keeping a level head, keeping my mindset right so I can put down a run and go from there.”