Vermonter Hannah Kearney keeps finding herself in the middle of success. High school state soccer and track team championships were followed by four Junior World Championships titles in moguls. When the multi-sport talent hit the World Cup full time, she won two competitions in her rookie season - one when she was still 17. A year later Kearney became the 2005 moguls World Champion and now holds a World Cup moguls title from 2009.

In her first season back from an injury, Kearney lit up the world of freestyle moguls with a no holds barred attack on the course of every World Cup she came across. She started things off with a win during the season's first World Cup in France. Next she headed to Mont Gabriel (CAN) where she was third, before stunning the U.S. crowd with a second and first place at Deer Valley. She then hit the podium on the 2010 Olympic course in Vancouver before racing to the bronze at FIS Freestyle World Championships in Japan. She wrapped up the season in Sweden with a win that put her on the World Cup podium six times throughout the season and left her with the season World Cup moguls title.

FIRST TRACKS
On skis at 2, she came up through the Ford Sayre program, then moved to Nick Preston's Black and Blue Trail Smashers Team at Waterville Valley. In 2002, she won the Junior World Championship moguls and duals gold medals, and repeated both titles at Junior Worlds in 2003, too. "Hannah's always performed at the highest level, and it's continued with us. Look at her soccer - the quickness, the good balance, look at her moves and she can copy-cat that into what it takes to make a good mogul turn. There's a lot of cross-over," said former coach Don St. Pierre.

FIRST WORLD CUP
Jan. 11, 2003 at Mont Tremblant, QUE (26th in moguls)

I AM

Just one member of a sports-oriented family - Mom's the recreation director in Norwich, brother Denny is a first-rate hockey player (and, before focusing on the ice, he was an outstanding baseball player - and Dad coached his Babe Ruth team)...When Hannah was sidelined due to injury in 2007, she took over a 7-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback dog, Lola, from an elderly women who couldn't care for her...Gotta-have when she travels: family and friends' photos plus knitting supplies..Played trumpet in the school jazz band into her sophomore year... Enjoys riding horses, cooking, playing soccer and reading...She's not much for watching sports on TV - "I'd rather be playing some sport than watching it"..."Fried Green Tomatoes" is (still) her favorite movie..

Photo by Gary Dickey