There must be something in the water, because Vermont-based UnTapped athletes had an incredible Olympic run. Ben Ogden showed terrific success while Ryan Cochran-Siegle secured his second silver medal in consecutive Olympic games. We caught up with Ryan amid a busy post-Olympic period.
Wow, congratulations Ryan! How was the overall Olympic experience?
Overall I had a great time. How could you not when you bring home another Olympic medal? There were definitely lows through the week, but overall I did my best to enjoy every moment and take it all in. It also ended up being really special to get to share the moment with my fiancé, Jessie, my mom, and some close friends.
Now an Olympic veteran, what stood out here in 2026?
Every Olympics is always unique and special in its own way. The couple of things that stand out the most from these games would be the isolation away from nearly all other sports and even the Alpine women being 5 hours away in Cortina. Not only was our athlete village quite unremarkable (it was 3 pre-existing hotels with a gas station in between), but other experiences so closely tied to the Olympics were also fragmented. For instance, because we were staying in one of the mountain clusters, the opening ceremonies that we were allowed to attend were held in Livigno and not the actual ceremony in Milan. I ended up not going either way as the Downhill was scheduled the next morning, but to those athletes who did go and this was their first Olympics they said it was a pretty insignificant experience.
The upside of this was that the town of Bormio stayed pretty quiet while we were there and made it easier to focus on the races. These games were also unique as we were racing on the Stelvio where we have a World Cup every other year, so there was a lot more familiarity with the venue and understanding of the slope. For Pyeongchang and Beijing, there were completely new mountains and tracks to learn in just a couple of days which was exciting but also posed some challenges. The nice side of this was also not having to deal with any jet lag or major travel to get there as we were only about a five hour drive away from our race before in Crans-Montana.
We hear you were battling sickness for a time. How were you mentally and physically able to regroup before the Super-G?
Luckily there were 3 full days between the Downhill and Super-G, so I did my best to recover from whatever it was that I had. To be honest I was pretty down after the downhill just because I was still dealing with the nausea and low energy on top of feeling like I had lost my biggest opportunity to medal based on where my skiing performances had been leading up to the games. Once I accepted everything for what it was it was easier to move on and focus my attention on what I needed to do for the Super-G in order to fully give myself the best opportunity I could.
The UnTapped Mapleaid really saved the day! The biggest thing was helping me get back to baseline after throwing up as much as I did on the Downhill race day. I ended up getting pretty dehydrated with a nasty headache through the night after, so I just tried to intake as much fluid and electrolytes as possible for the next couple days.
Like every morning before I race I had an UnTapped Mapleaid packet that I put into my water bottle prior to my warm up and race run. That morning’s flavor was the good old standard maple.
The Games seem like a spectacle. How were you able to find a routine while there?
After the first couple of days going to the hill for training runs it becomes relatively easy to find a routine that works. Again, we were so isolated that although it was obvious to be competing in the Olympics, I never got a massive sense that it was such a major event between the quiet town and up on the crowdless mountain. The biggest reminder was going through security and taking a shuttle every morning. Aside from that it was pretty typical of any other World Cup we race at and that definitely helped maintain enough normalcy to focus on skiing.
There was a lot of energy beaming towards you from back in Vermont. Could you feel that hometown excitement?
Absolutely! I honestly felt the most energy when both Ben and Paula (fellow Vermonters) won their medals earlier on. I thought it was so cool to see their performances knowing how much work they put in and how substantial that is to bring back to the state of Vermont. It gave me a lot of inspiration and confidence in myself and even helped take off some of the pressure that I had been putting on, not to mention the motivation to join in on their party! I’m really not sure without them if I would have been able to ski the way that I did. I really hope we can all do another celebration together this spring back home and with our community.
Try Ryan’s tried-and-true:
