Anna Gibson wants to set the record straight. 

The Jackson, Wyoming native began her professional ski mountaineering journey seven months ago. That’s true. However, she’s far from inexperienced.

“It’s kind of a funny thing. People hear the story and they're like, ‘Oh, she's brand new to the sport.’ But this is something I've been doing recreationally as soon as I could ski, basically,” Gibson told NBC Sports.

The 26-year-old is gearing up to partner with longtime friend and USA Skimo teammate Cam Smith in the mixed relay — a “SkiMo” race making its Winter Olympic debut in Bormio.

Smith recruited Gibson to join him on this Olympic journey back in June of 2025. In December, the duo earned the U.S. its first World Cup victory in the history of the sport at a last chance qualifier event in Solitude, Utah, clinching the country a surprising 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games bid in its final opportunity to do so.

A decorated professional trail runner, Gibson revealed that many of her fondest childhood memories took place on the slopes with her parents. She would skin up (uphill ski) and ski down the Gros Ventre at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. A rudimentary version of ski mountaineering.

“Technically that was against the rules,” she admitted with a laugh. “I'm fully outing myself right now as breaking the law as a child, which is totally fine. I think they know.”

The sport of SkiMo is so young in the United States — its governing body, USA Skimo, formed only a decade ago — that Gibson didn’t even refer to what she was doing at the time as ski mountaineering. It was simply “skinning” or “going for a tour.”

Growing up, she fell in love with Alpine skiing, and competed in slalom, giant slalom and super-G races. She also cross-country ski raced, while track was her primary sport in high school.

Gibson had all the necessary ingredients that go into ski mountaineering, she just never assembled. That is, until Smith and USA Skimo showed her the recipe. Now she’s cooking on high heat.

Ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics, NBC Sports asked Gibson 22 different questions about what it’s like to be an Olympian, the SkiMo learning curve, how Smith convinced her to pick up the sport, what she defines as success and more.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

The World Cup race in Solitude was about two months ago. At the time you said you were speechless, overwhelmed. Now, having a little bit of distance from it, how are you feeling?

Gibson: I would say ‘overwhelmed’ still rings true in a good way. It's been quite a cool adjustment to being an Olympian and feeling the reality of all of that setting in. 

You don't hear athletes often talk about the time between qualifying and competing at the Olympics, but it's a wild time. It's really fun. There's just so much excitement from a lot of people. And being back in my hometown, there's a lot of people who are just really ecstatic about it and have so many questions. So it's been a lot of fun just getting to explain how SkiMo works and talk to people about the whole experience.

I can't go to the grocery store or go get gas or go to a coffee shop or go skiing at the resort without someone bringing it up to me. And so I think that part's been really fun. There's just so much energy, and every time somebody brings it up, it gives me more excitement for the whole experience.

Do you feel like a celebrity? Having all these people coming up to you now and wanting to talk to you? Or has that just kind of been like the nature of your hometown?

Gibson: I've always felt a lot of support from this place. This community is really invested in sports, especially ones that are outdoor, endurance related sports. 

But I think the word Olympics comes with a lot of extra excitement because people understand that it's just objectively the highest level of sport that you can get to no matter what you do, and also that it's a community effort. 

I think people are really invested in the Olympics specifically because it takes a lot for an athlete to make it to that point, and a lot of it has, honestly, nothing to do with the athlete. It has to do with all of the systems that brought them there.

My ski club here in Jackson Hole, growing up there's so many people who coached me or played a really big role in turning me into the athlete that I am. My high school cross-country team. Any support person who has played any role, I feel like qualifying for the Olympics gives it a level of validation where it's like all of that effort from this community was worth it to have this opportunity. 

It's not really about me. It's about all of us accomplishing something together. That's what it feels like.

You said people come up to you ask questions. What is the question you get most?

Gibson: A big one is about the Olympic format. How does it even work? What is the race? Because there's a lot of different styles of SkiMo racing, and people in Jackson and in Wyoming in general are pretty familiar with SkiMo as a sport.

But there's a lot of technical rules about understanding how the relay race works. How long is it? When do you put your skins on? When do you ski down? Are there gates? Are there other obstacles? 

When you’ve had to explain the rules to people, has that helped reinforce your own learning process?

Gibson: It honestly has been so key for me, which is hilarious. I’ve gotten off of podcasts or interviews and then texted our coach or texted Cam [Smith] and been like, ‘Oh my gosh, help. Someone asked me a question I don't know the answer to, can you teach me?’ That's happened a handful of times. 

The other day, I found myself looking up the technical rules of the Olympics because I was unsure about a small detail about the race and yeah, it has exposed my lack of knowledge at certain times. So I appreciate the questions. It's making sure I know what I'm doing. It’s a funny learning process.

A lot of winter sports, by nature, are pretty individual. You're out there competing on your own, but the fact that you’ll be racing with a partner, I can see how it would feel less like you're alone.

Gibson: This is honestly the most team-oriented sport feeling I've ever had. Between being on a team with Cam and qualifying riding on each other's performances, to the fact that I decided to do this seven months ago, and actually needed every single athlete on the U.S. team because they were teaching me everything that I know. They were sharing all their tips and tricks and teaching me how things work and that has felt like a very team-oriented process. 

Is it true that you started ski mountaineering competitively only seven months ago?

Gibson: Yes, it’s kind of a funny thing. People hear that story and they're like, ‘Oh, she's brand new to the sport.’ But this is something I've been doing recreationally as soon as I could ski, basically. 

I have memories of being in elementary school and asking my parents if we could go out and skin up and ski down the resort before and after school, and I remember loving it way back then.

My parents both have also raced and I remember going to watch them at this event that took place here in Jackson called the Rodney Rally when I was like five years old. So I've known what SkiMo was my whole life. I just made my foray into it as a competitive discipline recently.

Back in the day, when you were ski mountaineering, did you call it that? The sport is so new…

Gibson: As a kid, I was definitely not calling it skimo. I would just ask, ‘Can we go skin up the Gros Ventre?’ That was the run that we would skin up and ski, which technically was against the rules at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. So I'm fully outing myself as like, breaking the law as a child [laughs]. Which is totally fine, I think they know.

They're probably okay with it, seeing where you are now. They'd probably let it fly.

Gibson: The SkiMo language has been in my vocabulary for quite a long time. And from that point I got really into Alpine racing, doing slalom, giant slalom. I did a little bit of super-G. Then I got serious about running and realized that I was more of an endurance athlete. 

When I went into high school, running was my primary sport. I started Nordic ski racing too, so I have these different sport backgrounds that really gave me all the skills that I needed to put SkiMo together so quickly in the last seven months.

Who or what made you want to do SkiMo competitively?

Gibson: I've had a lot of people ask me over the last couple of years if I would be interested and if I ever raced, and the moment just never felt right. I always sort of knew it was something I would do, but I was feeling very excited about my running career. That was my full time job, so I had put a lot of effort into running, and just wasn't ready to do SkiMo yet. 

My relay partner Cam and I were at a race together in June this past year, and he came up to me and said:

If the answer is no, tell me now, and I'll never bother you about this again. But you should try skimo.

Then he went into this whole tangent about how close the U.S. was to making the Olympics, and here's how the Olympic disciplines work and here's why I think you should do it. I could just feel his excitement about it. From the moment that they announced four years ago that SkiMo would be in the Olympics this coming winter, he has been dreaming about going. 

He and I have known each other for four or five years now and have become friends through the running world. And then I talked to some of the team staff with USA skimo, and I could tell how excited they were. It just really became apparent that this was going to be a really fun experience for me. I was going to have the opportunity to maybe become an Olympian, which is the coolest thing ever, and also that I could give six months of my life to maybe make all these dreams come true for all these other people.

So within a week of having that conversation with Cam, I was fully on board with the entire plan, even though none of this outcome was guaranteed at all. Like, I still had to get on the USA skimo team, which was a whole other logistical hurdle that I had to overcome to begin with.

So when did you start SkiMo’ing with the team?

Gibson: I started going to training camps in July. And then we had them in August, September, October. In November we had our first selection race, which was all the U.S. athletes, basically to determine who the “A team” was going to be that lined up at the Solitude World Cup race that was the final qualifier. 

Some of the camps were in Salt Lakes. We also went on a trip to Italy, and we trained on the Stelvio glacier. I remember being up there and our coaches were like:

Hey, down there, that's where Borneo is. That's where the Olympics are. 

The camps taught me everything I know. They were really integral to getting me to the point where I was actually proficient in SkiMo.

When did you and Cam become teammates? 

We first became teammates at the selection race. A week after, the Head of Sport and head coaches told us who the team was that was going to be racing in Solitude and we actually raced three teams there. They went one-two in the B final, and then we won the A final. So it was just an incredible display of how much the team has leveled up in this past year. 

I'm so incredibly grateful that we all had the opportunity to compete. But Cam and I were determined to be the A team after that first selection race in November. And then even once we raced at Solitude and we secured the Olympic bid, we still were not officially selected to the team until the USOPC reviewed everything and made sure that we had followed all the rules. 

There were also a couple other athletes who were part of that conversation. Ultimately, it was maybe the second week of December that we got the official selection.

How did you find out that you and Cam were officially selected to represent the U.S. at the Games?

Gibson: I was just at my house here in Jackson, and I got a text from Sarah Cookler, the Head of Sport at USA skimo. She said, ‘Hey, call me when you get a chance.’ And that's the first time she's ever done that. 

The adrenaline started pumping. I'm like, ‘What's this about? Am I in trouble? Did I do something wrong? Like, what's going on?’ 

Then she just answers the phone, and she's like, ‘Hey, I just wanted to tell you that it's official. You and Cam are going to the Olympics.’ 

It was a total pinch-me moment. It felt like everything up to that point had kind of been a dream, like even our experience racing at Solitude felt just so out of body for me. We both had phenomenal performances, probably the best races of our lives. And then to finally get that phone call and just know it was for sure happening, like the reality just set in. We’re going to the Olympics.

How well do you remember the phone call itself? Like, the actual words that were exchanged?  

Gibson: It's kind of a blur. I feel like I didn't have that many words. I was just like, ‘Wow, that's so crazy. I'm so excited.’ I'm sure I said thank you to her because Sarah has been so instrumental in making all this happen. Not just for me on this short timeline, but also for the whole team. 

Sarah was like the one who organized the entire race at Solitude. Like she was directing all of that, and that race almost didn't happen. Without it, we would not have made the Olympics because Canada was ahead of us in the rankings, and we had to have that race opportunity to beat them in order to go. 

So we have Sarah and the whole team of people behind her to thank for the entire opportunity. They fundraised the money, went through the process of figuring out how to host a SkiMo race.

I made sure she knew how grateful I was. I would not have been able to do any of this if it weren't for her. 

You were this new person to the team seven months ago. Cam's been SkiMo’ing for years, same with other team members. I feel like somebody easily could have been like, ‘Anna's cutting the line. She's budging in front of us when we’ve been working at this forever. But it seems like that was just not the vibe.

Gibson: Not at all. And I've gotten a lot of questions about how the team received me joining, and I have felt zero animosity. There is no ego on this team whatsoever. I think a large part of that comes from the fact that these athletes got to know me as a person. They see that I do have a background in this sport. It's not a brand new thing. 

Also, I train really hard, I work really hard, and I think they got to know me and saw that, and they're like, ‘Oh, like, we're all doing the same thing.’ We just took different paths to get to this point. 

At the end of the day, we are all elevating each other's levels, and so there's a very easy exchange of tips and tricks, and all the things that make you good at SkiMo, we're all readily sharing them with each other, which has been really cool.

What aspect of SkiMo would you say is either the most difficult for you or is the one you dread? 

Gibson: I don't dread any of it. I love all the pieces, and I think it's really fun that there's all these elements that you have to be good at to succeed overall. 

I think that the most challenging part for me, just because it's the newest element, is doing the transitions quickly. There's so much style and so much practice, and it's challenging when your heart is pounding out of your chest and you're breathing super hard and everything burns. It's really hard to have the dexterity to do the transitions quickly and accurately.

I love the uphill. As an endurance athlete, that's where I thrive. To me, they feel good. 

And I also love the downhill. I've loved getting back in touch with that old part of my brain that's a ski racer.

There are a few different types of transitions that happen in the mixed relay. How much do you practice them and where do you practice them? I imagine you don’t need snow or a mountain for that? 

Gibson: That's the part that's cool. And it's cool that that was my weakest point, because doing transitions and learning how to do them is like learning how to do a kick flip or learning how to ride a bicycle. You don't need that much space. It's a skill that you just practice with repetition, and then once you get it, it becomes easier and easier and easier, and it kind of becomes second nature. 

For me, the process started in August when there was no snow. It feels absurd to have your ski equipment out, but I was doing the transitions on a yoga mat, either in my yard or in my living room. Generally, I tried to do it when I was already tired. So I do them at the end of the day, like in the evening, because then I was trying to simulate having a tired brain and a tired body in a race, and learning how to do them when I'm in this less optimal state, because that honestly plays a really big role in how well the transition goes. 

Are there little tips or tricks that you’ve developed that you try to do every time you're in the middle of one of those transitions?

Gibson: I think the biggest thing I learned technique-wise is that trying to go fast makes the transitions less reliable and less consistent. Sometimes if you try to go fast, you’ll go fast, but other times you'll make a fumble, and then it's like a mess to clean up. So then you add five to 10 seconds and it’s completely botched. 

I found out that for me, if I stop trying to go fast and I just make it as smooth as possible, then maybe I'm going like half a second slower every time, but it's more reliable.

The other big thing for me has been learning what gloves work best, which is kind of a funny realization to have. The material that is over your hands completely changes your dexterity, and it also completely changes how that material interacts with the skin.

Do you ever have stress dreams trying to do a transition? 

Gibson: I haven’t had them lately, but I did in November, right before the team selection event. I was having a really hard time. I think it was a product of having a hard time imagining what the race itself was actually going to look like because I hadn't done it before, and so my imagination was just going crazy. Like imagining all these things that could possibly go wrong for me. But that all has completely gone away. I didn't have stress dreams before the Solitude World Cup, and I'm definitely not having them now. 

When I’d watch you guys going uphill, in the ascent portions of the mixed relay, that Kate Bush “running up that hill, make a deal with God” song starts playing in my head. When you're actually doing it, what's going on in your mind?

Gibson: It really depends on the event and how I'm feeling and how we're doing and all of that. It varies widely. 

But one thing that is very consistent is that I'm always giving myself a pep talk. It is really a process of just constantly convincing yourself that you're going to be okay. Because the whole experience of being an endurance athlete is that your body is telling you to stop, and you're just hitting the override button time and time and time again. 

Going uphill, I'm like, okay, wow, I'm working really hard. And then it's like, okay, wait, I'm working hard, but everyone's working hard. I'm gonna keep doing this, I'm always just continually convincing myself that I'm physically going to be okay and that I know what I'm doing. Just like trying to reassure myself to keep going.

Something you said on Instagram that really resonated with me is that the biggest lesson you learned from SkiMo so far is that every what-if can be framed in terms of failure or framed in terms of success. Is that something that somebody said to you, or did you just come up with that on your own?

Gibson: On a podcast, I was being asked about my mindset and how I was managing the feeling of not knowing what I was doing and being in a new sport. I kind of had this epiphany that no one would have noticed if I failed because they expected me to fail. 

They were expecting me to be new and not know what's going on and not make it. So framing the worst case scenario as I fail, and nobody really knows and we try again next Olympic go around, or best case scenario we make it and become Olympians. Imagine all the incredible things that could come from that. 

The gravity of these two outcomes is so different. The gravity of the positive outcome is so much more massive. And so I realized that's something that without knowing it, I have done in my head for years. A process that I've kind of refined for myself with my mental state before and during races of just like I always think about the positive outcome. I think I was taught that in high school. 

We used to do these little visualization classes where our coach would guide us through a positive visualization, and I would imagine myself winning or getting a personal record or going faster than I ever had before, and it's just what I do inherently. 

Heading into Milan Cortina now, do you have that same mindset? Or do you feel some pressure? 

Gibson: I've honestly been trying not to think too much about the outcome of the Olympics or what the goal is or any of that. Because I just know that for me as an athlete, that's not the mindset that leads me to the best performance. I just do better when I feel free and am just really excited about being there, and I'm just soaking the experience as a whole.

Best case scenario, I could have the coolest, most amazing experience that I'll have in my entire life. Worst case scenario, I go there and I'm still an Olympian, and I have this crazy experience with Cam and all the people who are there to support us. 

There's really no losing. Going to the Olympics is such a dream it doesn't feel like there's a ton of pressure because we were the underdog coming in. To have the opportunity to go and take the U.S. to that level is incredible. 

Is being an Olympian something that you dreamed about when you were younger? Or is making it to the Olympics something that just kind of happened organically without a ton of forethought?

It's funny, reflecting on my athletic years, I actually do think I've always wanted this. I just wasn't super honest with myself about how badly.

This is the fourth sport that I've potentially had Olympic dreams in. And so I've always had this idea in my head that if I gave everything to a sport, I could reach this level, and that’s something I was interested in. 

And then along that path somewhere, I’d take a turn, and I'm like okay, actually, I'm gonna do this other thing now. When I was 10, it was Alpine racing, then it was Nordic, then it was track. Now we're here, and becoming an Olympian was always something I wanted, but it wasn't at all costs. Like, it wasn't like I'm going to give up everything to make it happen. No, I'm going to chase what I'm really passionate about, and if I become an Olympian, that's incredible. 

Here we are now. It's happening. And I'm like, wow, I've actually spent a lot of my life thinking about being in this position. I just didn't know how I was gonna get here. It doesn’t feel like a total surprise, but I didn’t expect it to come up on me this quickly. But yeah, I've always wanted it.