Milwaukee native is fearless in moguls
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – When Casey Andringa took his father’s advice about not giving up moguls skiing even though he failed to make any of three 2017-’18 U.S. National teams, his goals were modest.
“I just wanted to ski under the lights at Deer Valley (Utah) in a January World Cup,” said Andringa, who met that goal and finished fifth. “After that, I was like I might be in the running for the Olympics, and it just kind of fell in place.”
The details are much more complex. But the bottom line is that the 22-yearold Milwaukee native, whose family moved to Colorado when he was 3, came from literally out of the woods to reach the Winter Olympics and reach the final six, where he was courageous enough to attempt a new trick that might have brought him a medal.
That Andringa couldn’t quite pull off a Cork 10 truck drive on his final jump, touching the ground on the landing, hardly mattered. His fifth-place finish Monday in the men’s moguls was such a stunning success that he doesn’t need metal around his neck to symbolize his extended recovery from a fractured skull when he was 14, or spending last summer living with his brother in a small camper they named Viking.
“I knew if I wanted to get on the podium, I was going to have to land that trick,” Andringa said. “I’m going to go for it. It was really close. I went a little smaller than I thought I was going. The course was starting to get a little beat up and maybe I was a little fatigued.”
Andringa skied in the second qualifying run to start the night, then in the first two final runs when the field was cut from 20 to 12 to six. He went fourth in the third final after Australian Matt Graham already had put up a score of 82.57, and with Canadian superstar Mikael Kingsbury and Japan’s Daichi Hara to follow.
Kingsbury, the 2014 Olympic silver medalist who won 13 consecutive World Cup races in 2017-’18, took gold with a run scored at 86.63. Graham and Hara captured silver and bronze.
Andringa went outside the Olympic footprint to prepare for Monday, making an overnight trip to Seoul essentially for some R&R with friends.
“It’s kind of strange, but for me that was the difference between how I was skiing on the first qualifying day (Friday, when he was 14th) and today,” he said. “It reminded me why I’m here. I got to hang out with the people closest to me, and we got to have fun and mess around and make jokes.
“That’s why I ski moguls. It’s the people and the culture and the places I get to go.”
Andringa discovered a new favorite food that he dubbed the cheese river – “I have no idea what it actually was” – and ate chestnuts he claimed were roasted over an open fire.
It was a head-clearing diversion that carried Andringa further than three other Americans.
Troy Murphy, fourth in Friday qualifying, and two-time Olympian Bradley Wilson were 17th and 18th in the first final. Emerson Smith was 13th in the second qualifying run, missing out on the final by one spot.
“That run I got a little drifted on top so I wanted to go for it to make up for the mistake up there,” Wilson said. “It wasn’t a big mistake, but I knew I had to make up for it so I decided to go a little straight and I got stiff with my legs and couldn’t quite control the speed.
”But I’m at the Olympics, I can’t not smile. I’m really glad I went for it. I’ll make a lot of people proud going for that instead of blowing out and taking the easy way out.”
Wilson, 25, who is from Montana and trains in Park City, Utah, was firm in his plans to continue competing toward another Olympic run in 2022.
The competition will be even tougher, though, with Andringa’s emergence and his younger brother, Jesse, his trailer buddy last summer, who might not be far behind.