Lauren Macuga is a fairly recognizable member of the varying personalities that make up the U.S. Alpine Ski Team. While off the slopes during competitions, one typically will find her wearing one of her several bucket hats, as well as an infectious smile that helps fuel the U.S. team with optimism through a grueling season of ski racing.
This past season, Macuga made a loud announcement on the slopes as a young American skiing phenom and a speed-skiing force to be reckoned with.
The signs of Macuga's rise to success on the FIS World Cup stage was sudden; during the 2024-25 season, Macuga placed inside the top-10 skiers in World Cup events at the first three consecutive locations: Beaver Creek (4th in downhill), St. Moritz (7th in super-G) and St. Anton (9th in downhill). After three strong races, her next event was the super-G at St. Anton in January 2025, the day after the downhill.
Making the U.S. Alpine Ski Team at age 16, Macuga skied her first full World Cup speed tour in 2022-23 at age 20; her top finishing position was 30th at the downhill in St. Moritz, a result she repeated at the same location to begin her 2023-24 season. She began to hit her stride, snagging three top-10 finishes in the super-G, including her best finish in Kvitfjell (5th) at age 21, and four finishes within the top 25 in downhill events.
But during that downhill day in St. Anton, Macuga catapulted to instant name recognition.
“I mean, the morning was so normal,” Macuga said. “Everybody warmed up, went to breakfast. I think there was something; the warm-up course wasn’t even good, like you couldn’t even ski the warm-up course.”
Despite the inability to get a good feeling on the warm-up course, Macuga was in her usual bubbly mood, sitting and laughing with teammates in hospitality. Killing time, Macuga and her teammates agreed to put a question mark on the front of the 22-year-old’s helmet, using the U.S. Ski Team logo as the dot for some laughs.
Macuga is known for her infectious personality as the youngest member of the U.S. Ski A-Team. She grew up a natural competitor; she still competes with her three siblings when the family is together (Macuga chooses Wiggler as her go-to character in Mario Kart). According to Macuga, it's a toss-up between the siblings for who is the best gamer. The competitiveness in her family led Macuga to find her strength in Alpine skiing; all the Macuga siblings grew up trying out most skiing disciplines.
She brings the same fun, joyful spirit on roadtrips with her teammates on the U.S. Alpine Ski Team. This is no secret; her bio on the U.S Ski Team site includes a quote from Macuga quoting Will Ferrell's "Talladega Nights":
"'If you ain't first, you're last,' as Ricky Bobby says. I was last in my first World Cup, but it was all about the experience!"
There are countless examples of how Macuga contributes positive energy to the group of skiers, whether it's celebrating someone's race performance or getting their minds off the sport altogether. With her teammates, Macuga bought a German set of the board game Settlers of Catan, collecting various expansion sets of the game in different countries for the World Cup circuit. Reading the rules and game pieces in different languages is fairly difficult for translation and understanding, but fun for boosting team morale.
"I'm kind of the positive ball of energy, like my role is just keeping everything kind of fun. I'm always the instigator," Macuga said. "I carry around all the games, I carry the (Nintendo) Switch, Catan, Uno... of course, the older girls, they do ask me questions, and I'll always answer, but I'm not the leader or anything."
Corresponding with her success the last two years as a professional skier, Macuga channels that energy into laser focus for race day: doing warm-up runs by herself, inspections and keeping communication open with her coaches. Macuga may be young, but when she won the Nastar Nationals silver division in 2010 (at less than eight years old), the adolescent declared she would become a ski racer. She kept her promise to herself, and the same competitive attitude.
“It's always (to) have time to have my music and pick the songs I like to help me zone out, and I don't talk to anyone; I hear the core support, and that's it,” said Macuga. “I don't like to chit-chat or anything.”
Macuga typically does not watch many other skiers on the race course. Preparing for her super-G run in St. Anton, she saw Federica Brignone, a veteran Italian skier and eventual winner of the 2024-25 FIS overall Crystal Globe, complete her run in a time of 1:18.43, taking the lead with seven racers completing their runs on the course.
“She looked really good,” Macuga said. “And I was like, ‘Okay, just do it.’”
Racing the course, Macuga knew she had podium potential, making near-flawless turns while maintaining speed. Then she saw her time on the screens at the finish line: a 1:17.51, faster than all 16 other skiers, 0.68 seconds ahead of prior leader Stephanie Venier and 0.92 seconds ahead of Brignone.
On the broadcast, Macuga looked stunned, putting a glove to her mouth in shock, followed by a gleeful yell with both hands raised high in the air. She was all smiles at the bottom of the course, her face in pure shock and overwhelmed with joy.
It was just so exciting. And I think that whole race, till the end, until the very last minute, I didn’t believe it. ‘I was like, 'There's no way it'll stay… someone's got to come down and beat me.’ And then, well, no one did.
At just 23 years of age, Macuga accomplished a feat not done since her skiing idol and teammate two decades before: becoming the youngest skier to win a World Cup speed race since Lindsey Vonn in 2007.
Macuga celebrated with her teammates after doing copious amounts of media interviews, a new experience for her after a race. Halfway across the world in her hometown of Park City, Utah, Macuga’s parents were fast asleep, but she managed to call her dad at 4 a.m. mountain time when she got back to the hotel.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” Macuga’s dad said to her daughter.
“I won!” Macuga said.
“Oh my God!” her dad said in an elated reply.
Calling the family group chat after informing her dad the news, the Macuga family gathered virtually to hear about Lauren’s success in St. Anton. Macuga belongs to a family of professional skiers; her mom was taking her younger sister, Alli, to the airport en route to a moguls competition. Both family members were elated with the news when Macuga’s youngest sibling, Daniel, joined the call in confusion for the early-morning meeting and quickly went back to sleep after learning the news.
“Well, fair enough,” Macuga said, laughing.
Away for a ski jumping competition in Norway, Lauren’s older sister, Sam, did not find out until that night that her sister had shocked the Alpine skiing world with her first World Cup win.
With the win came a surge of media attention for Macuga, and several media and sponsorship offers that came with it, while she simultaneously prepared for the following week's race. Once again competing in the speed events, she finished 16th and 13th in the downhill and super-G on the Tofane Ski Centre in Cortina, the site for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.
Macuga knew she was losing her focus.
It was a lot to deal with, thinking I had to podium again... I ended up getting sick from it.
Beyond Cortina, Macuga yearned to change her approach. With proven podium potential under her belt, she returned to an easy-going philosophy that powers her personality. Her veteran teammates offered her similar advice: put skiing first. Macuga realized that she did not have to make a podium every week to be defined as a successful skier
“I just want to have fun; that's all I want to do,” Macuga said. “We're just gonna just keep going, not worry about all the media, all the sponsor stuff… I'm just gonna go ski. That's what I was doing before, and it worked.”
The mental fortitude paid dividends; Macuga bounced back the following week at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany, finishing 6th in the downhill, her second-best result in the event. She carried those results into the 2025 Alpine Skiing World Championships in Saalbach, Austria.
On a tear, Macuga finished top five in all events at her first-ever world championships: 5th in the downhill, 4th in the women’s combined (competing with Paula Moltzan), and the cherry on top, a podium in the super-G, tying Norway’s Kajsa Vickhoff Lie for 3rd. The performance made her the youngest skier to win a world championships medal in 12 years. This time, her mom got to watch her big win.
By the end of the FIS Alpine season, Macuga stacked several milestones unheard of for most 23-year-olds in the sport, including her first World Cup win, two World Cup podiums, seven top-10 finishes and a podium at the world championships.
Becoming the youngest U.S. Alpine skier to win a speed race since Vonn was a surprise to Macuga, her and her family’s favorite skier when Macuga was growing up.
“When you put it like that, it's just so cool to think of, I guess, what I could do,” Macuga said, who wasn’t aware she accomplished the feat.
When Macuga was on the verge of turning 23 this offseason, she looked at the Crystal Globes on display earned by U.S. skiing athletes at the USANA Center Of Excellence, noticing that Vonn earned her first at the same age.
“Next year, this is one of the goals. It was already on my goal sheet,” Macuga said about acquiring a Crystal Globe. “But now to know she did that at that age, and she's had this huge career, I want to do that.”
Macuga did not watch much ski racing when she was younger, but watched Vonn's historic 2010 Vancouver Winter Games downhill run. After the Games, Macuga’s parents obtained Lindsey Vonn’s 2010 jersey from her historic gold medal in a Park City auction. Macuga is not sure if Vonn is aware that the Macuga family possesses the memorabilia.
“It was so crazy,” Macuga said, “I think I wore it, and every time I wore it, I was like ‘Yeah, I’m Lindsey Vonn.’”
She previously met Vonn before becoming teammates with her at an event hosted by the Macuga family when Macuga was a teenager. While Macuga and her siblings were eating some appetizers, Vonn came over to hang out with the young skiing family.
It was just the most casual, like ‘meeting your idol’ ever.
After coming out of retirement to race during the 2024-25 World Cup season, Vonn is now Macuga’s teammate, hoping to make her fifth Winter Olympic team. She has offered Macuga mostly practical advice on the importance of becoming an elite athlete to complement skiing talent. One moment on the tour, Macuga recalled, Vonn recommended having a smoothie immediately after a race to improve recovery time. Imitating athletic practices from one of the most dominant speed skiers ever is a second-to-none resource, according to Macuga.
Along with Vonn, Macuga credited Jacqueline Wiles on the speed team as an inspiration and a leader on the women's team. Macuga modeled her skiing after Wiles when she began skiing competitively, emulating her technique almost identically before making progressive modifications.
Competing in Milan Cortina
Macuga now has the chance to compete at her first Winter Olympic Games in Milan Cortina, with a strong chance to reach the podium in the speed events. It has been a dream for young Americans to represent their country on the big stage. Fittingly, Macuga turned 23 on the Fourth of July.
Macuga said she's put additional pressure on herself to perform, labeling a medal in Milan Cortina as "the ultimate dream." Across the wall of Crystal Globes at the Center of Excellence is the Olympic medals earned by the U.S. Alpine team. Admittedly, Macuga felt a little overwhelmed gazing at the hardware.
But learning how to handle media pressure during her most successful World Cup year helped her outlook regarding her big goal.
The goal is, of course, to medal at any chance I can. But the goal above that is to have fun, and if I'm stressed about it, it's not gonna work.
As a bonus, there is a chance for three of the Macuga siblings to compete and qualify for the 2026 Games. Along with Alpine, Sam (ski jumping) and Alli (moguls) currently are competing in the Olympic qualification period for ski jumping, which began in July 2024 and ends on Jan. 18, 2026. It'd be a surreal moment, but another win for the family if one or both of the siblings qualified.
"We're gonna do everything we can, but there's always the French Alps, right? Those are pretty cool," Macuga said jokingly, referring to the 2030 Winter Games.
For now, Macuga is focusing on building off her strongest season to date in hopes of accomplishing her Olympic goals. A medal in the downhill would make Macuga the youngest American medalist in the discipline since Picabo Street at the 1994 Winter Games. A medal in the super-G would make her the youngest American medalist of all time in the discipline.
As the youngest speed skier on the U.S. A-Team, she hopes to inspire younger athletes to compete in speed races and to be a role model for the speed disciplines to grow in the country.
"Speed in the U.S. is kind of not buying, but it could be so much stronger, and it's because people are afraid of speed," Macuga said.
They have so many precautions... the moment you call it scary, that's when it becomes a fear.
Macuga plans to maintain her personality while training for the biggest ski racing year of her life, whether it's creating TikToks in the weight room, motivating her teammates or reading a good book to escape the pressures of ski racing. But Macuga is laser-focused on adding additional hardware on both walls at the Center of Excellence and making her mark as a young U.S. skier.