Background

Manifesto:

Life is not about what team you’re on, what country club you belong to, who you know, or how much money you make, life is about being yourself and doing whatever you need to in order to perform at your best.  There is no substitute for hard work.  Nothing in life is free; feed your passion and follow your ambitions.  You will never make everyone happy; all you can do is set yourself up for success the way you see fit.   After not qualifying for the 2010 Winter Olympics, all of this became abundantly clear.  I rid myself of the big performance goals (like the Olympics) that were painfully diverting my focus.  My new focus is on having fun and trying to win each race I enter with complete disdain for the long run.   Life is far too short to get caught up in things that don’t matter, lower your utility, or point you in the wrong direction.  I will not be alive long enough to worry about what year I get married or how my résumé looks to potential employers; I am here for one reason: to live life in the moment.  This is how my life has evolved and everything in it is a whole lot sweeter.  I will try to update my blog “Life, one half hour at a time” as often as I can.  Thanks for swinging in to say hi.  Cheers, w.

Bio:

Birth date: July 31, 1981                                                Home Club: Gunstock Ski Club

Height: 5’ 9”                                                                     High School: New Hampton School

Weight: 182                                                                      College: Colby College

Home town: Gilford, NH                                              Degrees: Economics, Government

Hobbies: sailing, waterskiing, real estate agent, biking, tennis, soccer, and pretty much anything outside.

Results:

35^th at World Championships 2011

24^th Beaver Creek World Cup 2011

26^th Hinterstoder World Cup 2011

2 Silver Medals at World University Games 2005

3 U.S. Nationals Podiums

2 Time NCAA All-American

New Zealand National GS Champ 2003

41 FIS Victories

Background:

Warner was born and raised in Gilford, NH skiing all winter at Gunstock Mountain, the local ski area, and sailing on Lake Winnipesaukee in the summer.  Warner attended Gilford High School and was a member of the soccer and ski team before he transferred to New Hampton Prep School- as a day student- during his sophomore year to focus more on skiing and academics.

After graduating from New Hampton Prep School in 2000, he joined Team Go, an elite ski team based in Summit County, Colorado, for a year of competitive ski racing. After a successful year in Colorado he realized the importance of a college education outweighed another year of international ski competition and moved to Waterville, ME to attend Colby College.  Attending Colby College afforded him not only the opportunity to excel in the classroom, but also on the slopes. Upon enrollment at Colby in the fall of 2001 he claimed the number two spot on the Colby Alpine Ski Team, behind fellow freshman Rob Saunders. During his four-year college career he successfully balanced ski racing and school.

Warner graduated from Colby in May 2005 with degrees in both economics and government.  He was the captain of the Colby Ski Team during his senior year and won Colby’s male E. W. Millett Award. This award recognizes a male and a female athlete that contributed the most to Colby athletics during his or her four years as an undergraduate. As a college skier he was a two-time NCAA All-American. However, it was not until his junior year that his college skiing career took shape. Chris Frank of Williams College and Warner studied abroad for a semester in Dunedin, New Zealand where they focused the vast majority of their time on basic ski racing technique and logged over 30 days on-snow. Upon returning to the United States, Warner won five EISA College Carnivals and finished fourth at U.S. Nationals in the Slalom (missing U.S. Ski Team qualification criteria by 18 hundredths of a second). At the completion of his junior year, his slalom world rank was 105th (once again missing qualification criteria by the slimmest of margins).

During Warner’s senior year he won three EISA College Carnivals, including the EISA Slalom Title, finished second at the NCAA Division I National Championships in the Giant Slalom, and took home two silver medals from Innsbruck, Austria in the Giant Slalom and the Overall during the Winter World University Games. At the year’s conclusion he once again finished just short of qualifying for the U.S. Ski Team.

After graduating Colby Warner decided to dedicate at least two years to competitive ski racing and joined up with Ski Racing International (SRI), an elite post college program.  At the start of the season he had some exceptional results and won a time trial to compete in the slalom World Cup at Beaver Creek.  Warner suffered a deep bone bruise a few weeks after that race and was side lined for all of January.  Then Warner pushed during the end of the season to finished 5^th in the GS at U.S. Nationals and flew off to Sweden and Norway looking for results to qualify for the USST.  He fell just short of qualify by 2 world ranks.  Warner was ranked 100 and 102 rather than having two top 100 world ranks.  However, the USST saw promise in the late blooming athlete and invited them to their Mammoth and New Zealand camps.  After two successful camps and a number of discussions, Warner became a non-funded named member of the U.S. B Team.

During the 2006-2007 season, Warner raced in Beaver Creek, Hinterstoder, and Alta Badia World Cups.  He was racing the GS world cup circuit for all of December.  In January, he won a Nor-Am event in Sunday River and then suffered a contusion to his Fibular head and strained his anterior tibialis on January 19^th at a Europa Cup GS in La Plagne, France.  Warner took a break, but struggle with the injury through the rest of the season.  At Canadian Nationals he put together a podium performance in slalom, but other than that he didn’t’ have much luck racing with an injury.  At the completion of the season, the USST completely dropped Warner.  Warner was disappointed – to say the least – that his national governing body no longer considered him a sound investment.  Since then the USST has made it very clear that Warner is no longer a member of their team.  Over the summer, Warner took 2 months off skiing to let his knee injury finally heal and then he went to New Zealand to train with Roger Brown.

During the 2007-2008 season Roger Brown and Warner formed Team Maximum Velocity, with a focus mainly on Europa Cup events.  The main goal of the season was to get better.  Not necessarily to drop their points, but to enter the most vigorously completive events and to work their way to the front of the pack.  Both Warner and Roger immediately scored the first Europa Cup points of their careers in December at the opening Europa Cup GS races in Geillo, Norway.  Near the completion of the season, Warner finished 6^th and 11^th in two Europa Cup GS races in Mediesimo, Italy to finish 21^st in the overall Europa Cup GS standing.  It was an impressive season to break through in the Europa Cup standing.  Then at US Nationals – for the first time in Warner’s career – he finished on the podium in 3^rd place in the GS.

During the 2008-2009 season, Warner hired Sam Damon of Carbondale, CO as head coach and technician of Team Maximum Velocity.  Traveling and racing with Sam was a huge help on the road.  Warner finished 3^rd in the GS Nor-Am standings, 3^rd at U.S. Nationals GS, 3^rd at Canadian Nationals GS, and won 5 races at the end of the season.  There were a lot of successful moments throughout the year, but not earning a world cup spot at Nor-Am Finals was a huge disappointment.  It was a bit touch and go whether Warner was going to continue ski racing, but ultimately the potential opportunity of competing in the Olympics was a more powerful force.  After a few good talks with Sasha Rearick, the head coach of the U.S. Team, Warner will be invited to all GS time trials leading up to the Olympics, which is his avenue to reach Vancouver.  The last two years the ski team has not had a single time trial for non-named athletes so it’s a step in the right direction.  Let’s hope this is a harbinger of the future relationship between the U.S. skiing governing body and non-named athletes.

Warner is overjoyed with Head skis commitment to him and is happy to be racing on them for another year.   Warner had a great camp in New Zealand with Apex Racing International and in Chile with Stratton Mountain School.  Then Warner joined up with Dane Spencer on TDL, Team Dreamin’ the Life.  We certainly were not living the dream as we hammered to one FIS race after another all over Europe, we were dreamin’ the life.  It was great to work with Dane Spencer and Warner had some great runs in Europa Cups (2 second place runs at the opening races in Levi, Finland), but failed to capitalize on his World Cup performances (Solden, Adelboden, Kransjska Gora) so he did not qualify for the 2010 Winter Olympic.  At the end of the season, Warner put together some great results after switching to the Dodge ski boot.  He was second at U.S. Nationals in GS, third in SG, and second in a Nor-Am GS.

That summer Warner started working in with Jon Olsson as his technician (ski tuner) to save some money in Norway for a month and then in New Zealand for 7 weeks.  In New Zealand Warner put together two phenomenal races and walked away from down under with 6 points in GS (ranked 31^st in the world).  During the winter he had some ups and downs, but scored World Cup points in Beaver Creek and Hinterstoder, which qualified him to compete at the World Championships in Garmisch, Germany.  The 2010-2011 season was by far the best season on Warner’s life.  He was finally able to let go of all his big performance goals and just go skiing.  Next season Warner will still be working with Jon Olsson on Team No Team (TNT) and with the US Ski Team when things work out.  He has a World Cup starting spot for every World Cup GS race next year.