Insights and reflections from Aidan on his professional nordic combined career and post college nordic skiing
Training with USA Nordic in Eisenertz AUT. 2018
Hello Team Birkie People!
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Aidan Ripp and this is my first season skiing for Team Birkie.
In May of last year I graduated from Paul Smith’s College with a degree in Biology with minors in Chemistry and Environmental humanities. After saying goodbye to Paul Smith’s, I decided to continue my cross country career by joining Team Birkie and keeping the “skiing dream” alive.
This dream to be a professional skier dates back to chasing my dad around at kid ski in Duluth when I was a mere 6 years old. I remember wanting to be just like the great local skiers of the time such as Nikolai Annikin, Andre Watt or Adam Swank. After moving to Cloquet (about 20 miles west of Duluth) when I was 7, I was introduced to the sport of ski jumping through the Cloquet Ski Club. Over the next couple of years ski jumping morphed from a fun way to spend a Tuesday night with my friends to traveling across the midwest jumping larger and larger hills until I was entering into ski jumping JNQ’s. It was at this point (around 13 years old) that I realized how I could compete in both sports as a Nordic Combined athlete. In 2015 I qualified for my first Junior Nationals for Nordic Combined and never looked back. I loved the mixture of the fast twitch, tedious, and exhilarating sport of ski jumping with the grueling contradiction of cross-country ski racing.
Harris Hill competition in Brattleboro, VT. 2019.
Me skiing in my first Nordic Combined Junior Nationals in Steamboat Springs, CO. 2015.
Over the next few years I made strides at the national level eventually leading to my qualification for my first Junior World Ski Championships in 2020. Following JWSC I came to the crossroads to decide whether or not to continue my career in Nordic Combined. The previous year I had already been accepted to a respectable college which I had differed for a year from to focus on Nordic Combined. While this opportunity was a good academic fit, it would have effectively terminated both my cross country and Nordic Combined careers. This was a hard decision for me to process but like many things in my life the answer came in the middle of a ski. I remember feeling my skis gliding over the perfect crust along the Eagles nest chain of lakes as the sun beat down on the early April snow as I thought, “I’m not done yet.”
Racing in Zhangjiakou China at the pre Olympic Continental Cup, 2021.
Lucky for me there was another option. In the last couple of years Paul Smith’s College had created a new Nordic Combined program through USA Nordic Sport which would give me training support and access to the newly renovated Lake Placid Jumping Complex. This opportunity gave me an outlet for my skiing goals while still working to get a degree. Over the next four years I made leaps and bounds in my development as a skier.
Despite having successes in Nordic Combined I began to lose interest in ski jumping by the end of my 4 years leading to my retirement from the sport this past spring. I had the realization that while I was still having some success, I wasn’t really enjoying it anymore, making competition and training more and more of a drag. Thinking back to when I was 16, having a good training session with all my friends from the midwest was a highlight of my week or even winter. This realization was a breaking point for me as I decided that while it had been a fun ride my time as a Nordic Combined skier was over.
Despite letting ski jumping go as a competitive sport, I still felt like I wasn’t done with cross-country quite yet. In May I joined Team Birkie ready to challenge myself and hopefully take my skiing and training to the next level. Unfortunately, that’s not what was in store for me.
Racing at USCSA nationals in Lake Placid, NY in the infamous Paul Smiths "Pickle Suit," 2022
While my summer started off like any other year, things quickly took a turn for the worse. After battling some sickness in May and June I was plagued by injury through the rest of the summer and into the fall. After my bout of COVID-19 in September and a sinus infection in November, I found myself questioning what I was still doing in this sport.
After taking the time to realize how much pressure I was subjecting myself to I began to understand how I was making myself miserable by old expectations. I was finding it challenging to accept that I was behind from where I was with no real explanation. Despite all of the gripe and frustration this season gave me it also gave me the opportunity to reflect on why I still ski. Letting go of my expectations of training and racing helped me realize that I still love this sport regardless of the wins and losses. While I do wish that I could’ve had a more productive summer and been able to do more sessions with my teammates at Team Birkie, there is still value in trying even if things don’t go my way.
From a Team Birkie perspective, Aidan is a great teammate and he has a lot to do in this sport. We are excited to see where he is going and excited to cheer him on as he is now currently in Italy, about to compete in the World University Games.
