BIOGRAPHY:
Olympian Leanne Smith followed her older sister Laurel into skiing, latched onto racing, and hasn't stopped shaving microseconds from her time. A NorAm champion and a topflight junior skier, she took her spot among the World Cup elite after finishing 23rd in her first career World Cup start, which also happened to be the first downhill of the 2008 season.

The Smith train then picked up steam in 2011 with top 10 World Cup finishes in both super G and super combined, but the real Smith story is consistency. Leanne was a staple on the World Cup, finishing the season ranked 15th in super G, 19th in super combined, 22nd in downhill—and in the process earned her first trip to the World Championships. She went from being 75th in the World Cup overall points in 2010 and to a rank of 30 in 2011.

For her part, Smith will tell you that the solid results have to do with more confidence on World Cup speed tracks—which comes from more experience—as well as from having a full injury-free season.

LEANNE SAYS:
"Everybody is a good skier in the top 30. It all just comes down to who makes the fewest mistakes on race day."

"I feel like I'm skiing really well. This is definitely the best I've ever skied right now and I've learned some things. I've learned as long as the skis are in the fall line the whole time and the top of the turn, you have to nail the top of the turn, produce the energy throughout the turn and produce the speed yourself."

"When I was younger, every kid dreams of being on the ski team. I kind of went through junior high and high school and had good results actually from where I was coming from and go to normal school (not a ski academy) and not doing as much traveling as all my peers nationally who were equally as talented as me. You can do whatever you want wherever you want as long as you work hard."

FIRST TRACKS:
On skis at age six, Smith skied at Cranmore, the heralded Mount Washington Valley ski area made famous when instructional legend Hannes Schneider arrived from Austria in 1938. She skied for Cranmore’s race team until she entered Kennett H.S., where she continued racing. She then spent a year at UNH and took a leave for Winter ’07 when she moved to the Mount Washington Valley Ski Team, and then erupted for a breakout season as a double NorAm champion, leading her directly onto the World Cup Circuit and the U.S. Ski Team.

OFF THE SNOW:
Big fan of Banana Bread, Dumb and Dumber and The Office. Digs the Arcade Fire, Guitar Hero and would be a pro mountain biker if skiing wasn't the sport of choice.  Would love to have dinner with Chris Farely, Franz Klammer and Lance Armstrong. Oh and I'd have dinner with Tyler (Palmer, a former Olympian from the New Hampshire).