It seems routine for today's professional athletes to involve themselves in all kinds of alternative methods of training. One thinks of professional football players joining ballet studios, hopeful to learn grace and poise on the field.
But for aerial ski jumper and Boise native Jeret "Speedy" Peterson, the list of training activities has become exceptionally diverse.
Trampolines, sky-diving, and Navy SEAL training camps are just some of the ways that Peterson, currently the top ranked aerialist in the world, is preparing for the 2006 Olympic Games at Torino, Italy, this coming winter.
Peterson will enter the Winter Games, his second Olympiad, on a hot streak.
With three victories and three second places, he emerged as the overall 2005 World Cup Aerial Champion. In 2004, he was the U.S. champion. And Peterson has years left—this December, just weeks before the 2006 Winter Olympics, he will turn 24 years old.
Since he first discovered the joys of skiing backwards at a Bogus Basin kindergarten program, Speedy, as his coaches and teammates know him, has often been one step ahead of the game.
Peterson first earned his nickname at a Lake Placid, N.Y. jump camp when he was 12 years old. The coaches took one look at the helmeted little guy, so eager to get in more jumps that he often cut the other children in line, and named him after the iconic 60s cartoon character, Speed Racer.
Except Peterson wasn't actually 12; he was 11. The camp would not accept any skiers under 12, so his mother doctored his papers, making Speedy speedier than even the coaches realized.
Peterson nailed his first on-snow backflip at Utah's Olympic Park not long after earning his moniker.
From there, it was a quick road to the top of the aerial game as he took bronze medals at both the 2000 and 2001 World Junior Championships. In 2002, he qualified last minute for the Olympics at Salt Lake City and finished ninth overall. A year later, Peterson took sixth in worlds.
Looking back on his 2004 season, a year where he would take the U.S. title, but underachieve at the World Cup level, Peterson now admits that he had "set (himself up for failure) by setting his goals too high"; he wanted five World Cup wins that year.
This past season, he narrowed his aspirations and reaped the benefits, earning three World Cup wins and the overall title. Peterson's career seems to be hitting its stride just as Torino looms large on the horizon.
Early this summer, U.S. Freestyle Team head coach Matt Christensen seriously diversified his winter athlete's training portfolios. After the team had their breakout 2005 season, Christensen reflected on the first SEAL camp as a vital ingredient of their success.
So, Peterson and the rest of the team returned to a Navy SEAL training facility in San Diego, Ca. for water conditioning, team drills, and sky-diving.
From San Diego, the team then traveled to the Skyriders Trampoline Centre in Richmond Hill, Ontario, just north of Toronto for intensive, eight hour days of twisting, spinning, and flipping through the air.
Lengthy trampoline training, complete with ropes and harnesses, is a common way for freestyle skiers to build their "air sense," or comfort with contorting and inverting while suspended in air.
In June, the team returned to its home turf—a state-of-the-art splash pool at Utah's Olympic Park. At the pool, aerialists can zip down a ramp, in skis, and practice their maneuvers high above the pool. The pool itself is aerated for less surface tension and easier, safer landings.
From July 21-26, a fifth training camp was staged at Olympic Park and Peterson continued to amaze his coaches and teammates. Christensen said, "Speedy has been amazing—one day he hit on two full, triple-full and fulls (five twists and three somersaults)."
The sixth and final training camp of the season opened Monday and will determine if a ninth athlete goes to Australia next month for World Cup aerial openers. There, the 2005-06 freestyle season opens Sept. 3-4 with a competition at Victoria, Australia's Mt. Buller.
