USA's Ryan Cochran-Siegle wins unexpected super-G silver 50 years after mom's Olympic gold

YANQING, China — Ryan Cochran-Siegle skied to a surprising silver medal here at the Olympics on Tuesday, completing a comeback from a gnarly injury, furthering a family legacy, and realizing a “childhood dream.”

Fifty years after Cochran-Siegle’s mom, Barbara Ann Cochran, won slalom gold at the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, the 29-year-old Vermont native finished second in the super-G, and grabbed Team USA its first Alpine medal at these Games.

Barbara taught Ryan, the newest member of the “Skiing Cochrans,” to ski when he was just 2 years old. He grew into the latest in a long line of national team members. Some 60 years ago, Ryan’s grandparents, Mickey and Ginny, built a small slope on the family’s property in Richmond, Vermont. They and their offspring ultimately produced 10 competitive skiers, including six Olympians.

Ryan, the youngest and best of the current generation, developed into one of the top downhillers in the world. Last season, he appeared to be peaking ahead of the Olympics, with a downhill and super-G win in December 2020.

Then, in January, amid his breakout season, he crashed during a World Cup race in Austria. He was airlifted away, and diagnosed with a fractured C7, one of seven vertebrae in the neck. On Feb. 9, 2021, 364 days ago, he had surgery to fuse the broken bone with the C6. “And, I mean, it was just a whole lot of doing nothing for two months,” he said.

He returned to snow in May, and then to speed training in August. There was never excruciating pain, he said. But there were “nerve issues in my right arm.” And there was never quite a return to his 2020-21 best.

“I feel like my level of skiing that I had prior, I can still attain right now,” he said ahead of this season. But, entering the Olympics, he hadn’t. He finished 14th in Monday’s downhill. Without an Olympic or World Championships finish better than 11th in his career, he didn’t look like a contender on Tuesday.

But family and friends gathered back home in Vermont anyway, at Cochran’s, the family ski area. “It was a lot more people than I thought,” Cochran-Siegle said Sunday. He’d FaceTimed with his mom, 50 years after her gold, after the men’s downhill here in Yanqing was postponed. He learned that local news had set up shop at the family watch party. He felt the support half a world away.

“Where we come from is the reason why we’re here,” he said.

Then, on Tuesday morning in China, a little after 10:30 p.m. Monday in Vermont, Cochran-Siegle attacked the speed course at the National Alpine Ski Center here. He outskied some of the best in the world. Austria’s Matthias Mayer won gold. Cochran-Siegle, skiing directly behind Mayer in Bib 14, was 0.04 seconds back in second.

Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde — Mikaela Shiffrin’s boyfriend — won bronze after disappointment in Monday’s downhill. Two Swiss favorites, Marco Odermatt and Beat Feuz, did not finish.

“You dream of these moments,” Cochran-Siegle said after all was said and done. “You see it in your mind. And at times, you have to put it away, you have to just focus on the skiing. And that was what I was doing today.”

If somebody had told him yesterday that he’d be on the podium, he said, “I wouldn’t have believed them.”

“But to come down, and see I was in second,” he continued, and then his mind drifted to beautiful places.

He was “happy,” and “relieved,” and yes, “a little bit proud.” His mom and sister, who he talked to on the phone shortly after the race, were as well.

“Some people say second place is hard,” Cochran-Siegle said. “This is the best second place I’ll ever get in my life.”