Juan Diego senior skis to world championship finish

Friday, Mar. 10, 2017

DRAPER — Thousands of skiers in America attempt every year to qualify for the Freeride Junior World Championships. The few that manage to make it then must face off against competitors from all around the world at the competition held in Andorra. 

William Flanagan, a Juan Diego Catholic High School senior, was one of these few. His performance this year not only earned him a place among the elite skiers from all over the world, but put him in sixth place in the men’s skiing division as well.

“William started skiing at the same time he started walking,” said Peri Flanagan, William’s mother. Both she and her husband were avid skiers, so “every weekend of his life he spent at Alta or Snowbird,” she said.

“I’ve always been drawn to skiing because it’s an individual sport,” said William Flanagan. “I’m putting in all the work, so I see all the reward or all the disappointment.”

As his skiing skills grew, his love of the sport grew with it, he said. “Skiing lets me express myself in a sense. Everyone has a different skiing style. In every other sport, like football or soccer, you don’t really see that.”

The time that Flanagan devoted to perfecting his skiing skills paid off when he and his team, the Alta Snowbird Ski Team, went to Canada to participate in a tournament held by the International Freeskiing Association.

This ski association was a stepping stone to the Freeride Junior World Championships, but the competition was fierce, Flanagan said. 

After the Canadian competition ended, only Flanagan and one other teammate qualified for the world championships held in Andorra.

Because the world championships were only his second time traveling outside the United States, Flanagan said he didn’t know what to expect from the small country of Andorra. 

He experienced some difficulty right away with the language barrier, he said.

“Andorra is a tiny, tiny country between Spain and France, so our bus driver only spoke Spanish,” Flanagan said. He tried to tell the driver that he wanted to be taken to the Grandvalira Ski Resort, but Flanagan didn’t realize just how big that area was.

 “[The ski resort] was as big as the Wasatch area. It’s like we were shouting at the driver, ‘Take us to the Wasatch!’ But he was thinking, like, ‘Where in the Wasatch?’” Flanagan said, laughing.

The weather during the championships was another challenge, Flanagan said. Fog rolled into the resort early on during his stay and was still thick on Feb. 4, when the competition took place. “The lighting wasn’t necessarily the best. It was hard to see when you hit a cliff the length and depth of the jump you had to make,” he said.

The skiers competing in the Freeride Junior World Championships were scored on how clean their run was from the top of the starting place to the bottom. They were awarded additional points for any difficult tricks they could incorporate on the way. The bumpy terrain and large rocks jutting out from the side of the mountain were challenging, but Flanagan took a risk by attempting a double jump, going over two ledges in quick succession. He then was able to nail the landing, which earned extra points and cemented his sixth-place finish. 

One of the most difficult challenges in the championships was “fighting my nerves at the top of my run,” Flanagan said. Every time he felt stressed seeing helicopters armed with cameras, ready to record his success or failure, he took a few deep breaths and felt for the rosary he always keeps in his pocket, he said.

Though proud of his performance and his sixth-place finish among dozens of the best skiers from around the world, Flanagan said he also had fun meeting competitors from Europe. “Seeing the diversity was very cool. Seeing how different, how friendly everyone was, and being able to meet a friend from Switzerland or New Zealand … that was one of my favorite parts.”