Moguls Skier Kai Owens Basks In The Experience Of A Thrilling Season

Kai Owens trains during a training session at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on Jan. 30, 2022 in Zhangjiakou, China.

It’s been an epic senior year of high school for Kai Owens. The rising U.S. moguls star made her first Olympic team, broke into the top 10 in the world and gained the world’s attention for her strong skiing and happy spirit.

In the next few months, she will graduate from high school, celebrate life a little and then continue her career ascent.

But first things first. She has a little time left — about a week to be precise — in her season.

Owens is in Italy this week for the world junior championships, and she wants to have fun. The shifts from the world cup season to the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing and now back to the tour have been a bit of a whiplash.

“It’s been an experience, where I’m just trying to stay focused through the end of the season,” Owens, 17, said. “I honestly haven’t had a lot of time to process everything that’s happened, because we just went from this event to that event to the Olympics to back to everything in Europe. It’s been a great experience, I mean aside from the injury thing at the Olympics, but even Beijing was great too.”

Owens made the world collectively gasp as she was involved in a hard crash in training at Genting Snow Park in Beijing. She recovered a little and was cleared to compete in the Olympic moguls, finishing 10th. She skied — essentially seeing out of one eye — thereby making showing up and getting down the moguls course a huge accomplishment.

Her face and concussion have healed, but the shoulder remains an issue. She has a partially torn rotator cuff and tapes the shoulder up and takes PT to keep going. Owens will get the shoulder reexamined during the offseason.

In March Owens placed fourth in a dual moguls world cup in Chiesa in Valmalenco, Italy, then went on to place ninth in moguls and fourth again in dual moguls in Megeve, France. This week’s junior world championships are back in Chiesa.

“I’ve seen the photos of my face, and ouch. It was bad, but I don’t remember any of it because I was knocked out,” Owens said. “Still, the Olympics were awesome, because the experience has made me hungry for more. I want to come back to the Olympics; I want to be on that podium. Getting to be on my first Olympic team was a moment where I said, ‘Oh wow, look how far I have come.’ I had pride and excitement about that accomplishment.”

Watching the runs of other Olympians revealed a lot to Owens. She’s still maturing as an elite moguls skier, trying to take her potential — she was the 2021 world cup rookie of the year — to the next level.

“I saw their consistency. That is the name of the game in our sport. You have to get it done, run after run, you need to be very high endurance,” said Owens, who was born in China but then adopted by U.S. parents and raised in Vail, Colorado. “You have to be the one who lays down three great runs, you have to be the one who always hits the super final. So that is what I am working toward, the mental aspect, of being the one who can lay down those three great runs consistently, when it counts like at the Olympics.”

“The best girls, the great skiers, trust their ability to do that.”

Owens is learning a lot from the other women on the U.S. ski team and considers the group to be extremely supportive. She said the deep U.S. team knew it would be a tough process to only send four skiers to Beijing in moguls. The ones who didn’t make it were disappointed but switched their feelings to be supportive of Owens and the rest of Team USA during the Games.

“I’m not going to lie, it’s never perfect on our team, because we’re human too. Having only four spots, and like six of us who could have gone made things tough,” she said. “It was a little awkward when we got home (from Beijing) and came back together. But really quickly, we all got back to being together like we were before and supporting each other. It’s OK to be awkward, because we all wanted the same thing, and not all of us could get there. We all want the best for each other in the end, and we lift each other up as women and competitors.”

Owens will be going back home soon, and she is looking forward to reuniting with her parents, younger brother and dog Mochi. She laughed when discussing Mochi, as her beloved doggie has had to make do with daily video calls right now. Owens gives loving pets to the cats and dogs she sees in Europe, making them the pet proxy for Mochi.

“I am really excited to come home, it’s been a crazy year,” she said. “A crazy, but good year. I’m ready to come home, be with everybody, and graduate from high school. It’s a lot to look forward to.”

Joanne C. Gerstner has covered two Olympic Games and writes about sports regularly for the New York Times and other outlets. She has written for TeamUSA.org since 2009 as a freelance contributor on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.