As sliding sports take center stage at the Milan Cortina Olympics, Sean Hollander and Kelly Curtis are not only focused on training for the Games, but sharing what they have learned on and off the track with younger generations.
Both members of Team USA work with a nonprofit, Classroom Champions, that connects elite athletes with elementary and middle school students. The curriculum blends life and athletic skills to equip students with the confidence and perseverance to reach their potential in school and beyond.
Hollander and Curtis recently distilled their experiences qualifying for two Olympic teams, detailing the lessons in resilience they have gleaned from sliding sports and the mentors who shaped their paths throughout the journey.
Lessons on the road to Milan Cortina
Hollander, who competes in men’s doubles luge, began mentoring students through his fiancée and fellow 2026 Olympian, Paige Jones. She will represent the U.S. in ski jumping at the Milan Cortina Games.
“I saw the work that she did with them,” Hollander said. “It seemed very fulfilling knowing that you have all of these supporters and that you can always keep them updated. It’s the most fulfilling volunteer work that I’ve done.”
The pair met in Lake Placid, New York, where Hollander was training and Jones was competing in ski jumping nationals. A few days after Jones first visited Lake Placid, she left for her World Cup season and they didn't see each other for three months.
“These sports bring us to so many different parts of the world that we've had to be long distance for so long,” Hollander said. “But also her being in a sport that's so similar to mine, she kind of understands that lifestyle so much and she just really gets the pressure that you feel in these sports.”
Maintaining friendships can be challenging with the travel demands placed on elite athletes, but being able to lean on a partner who understands the physical and emotional demands of Olympic qualification is invaluable. Their desire to share what their unique lifestyles have taught them about tenacity with a community of students who are rooting for them has only strengthened their bond. Hollander regularly shares training updates with the students he mentors and includes them in his Olympic journey. He plans to "bring them along with him" while he is in Cortina.
Certain aspects of the Games will be new to Hollander too, as his Olympic debut at the 2022 Beijing Games was atypical due to COVID-19 restrictions. While he is eager to return to the Olympics stage, his excitement for Jones outstrips even his own joy.
“This is her first Olympics and this is my second, so I'm almost more excited for her than I am for me — for her to actually be able to experience all this stuff,” Hollander said. “I'm kind of vicariously living that first Olympic experience again through her.” Their mentees back home will be living vicariously through them too.
Curtis is also a returning Olympian, but the Milan Cortina Games were her initial goal when she started climbing the women's skeleton ranks. She joined the Air Force through the World Class Athlete Program, which supports elite athletes in training and competition while they serve. Curtis requested to be stationed in Aviano, Italy before the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
“I was thinking, 'Okay, I probably won’t make these Beijing Games,'” she recalled. “This is my rookie year. … Let me put everything towards Milan Cortina.”
She exceeded even her own expectations and made her Olympic debut four years earlier than planned, becoming the first Black athlete to represent the U.S. in skeleton at the Olympics. That experience only added fuel to her original aim of qualifying for the 2026 Milan Cortina Games, which are, In a way, a home Olympics for the Italian resident.
“The environment is so beautiful,” she said of her current home. “I’m looking forward to everyone just enjoying the Italian culture atmosphere.”
She became a mentor after a few of her teammates expressed how satisfying working with students had been. “Classroom Champions does a great job of introducing a different style of learning that’s not just textbook-related,” Curtis said. “We use our personal examples to show how we’re able to navigate through our trials and tribulations.”
Between her mentees and family back home and in Italy, Curtis will have quite the cheering section around the world. “Now that I finally qualified, I have a community of support not only back home stateside, but also within our town, our village and our Air Force base. So I'm really excited for Italy just to have the spotlight on it,” Curtis said.
The mentors behind the mentors
One mentor Curtis emulates when she works with students is her high school football coach back in Princeton, New Jersey.
“His name was Steve Everett,” she said. “He just always led by example.” She worked with him as the manager of the football team and witnessed how he deftly transformed the program at a time when her school and town really needed it. “He would always push us to be the best version of ourselves by challenging us and meeting us where we were,” Curtis said.
Hollander’s inspiration came from within luge. He named Chris Mazdzer, the first American men’s singles Olympic luge medalist, as a highly impactful force in his own life. Mazdzer inspired him “to reach out and kind of do [his] part,” not just to promote luge, but to share what the sport can teach you beyond the track.
The most influential lesson Hollander has learned in luge is “not being scared to fail.” In his sport, there is no such thing as hiding it when you do.
“When you fail, it’s a very public thing,” he said. “You can’t really hide it because it’s on TV. You just gotta be able to brush it off and learn from it and move on,” he said.
Hollander has recently become a student again himself. He started taking online classes in business sports management at the University of Arizona to give him something to focus on outside of training. This helps ensure that luge does not consume his entire headspace, which can be difficult to accomplish in any sport, but especially one that has heavy psychological demands.
“If you are able to counteract that with other things and take your mind off that and put that brain power to something else, it really helps,” Hollander said. “That's what's allowed me to sustain myself through these years, because luge is really like a full-time job.”
Curtis echoed the mental challenges inherent in this last stretch of Olympic preparation. After qualifying, the relief was acute, but knowing for sure she would be competing in Cortina introduced a whole new category of nerves. One goal of hers is to change as little as possible about her approach to training.
“It’s a lot of relief for qualifying,” she said, “But it’s also just steering the ship, making sure that we’re not changing too much.” Her Olympic build-up also included a major physical setback: a grade-two hamstring tear in late August. For much of the first half of the World Cup season, she was still rehabbing.
“I’m pushing faster than I ever have,” Curtis added. “I feel good, I feel healthy.”
Curtis recorded the second World Cup podium finish of her career in January in St. Mortiz, Switzerland. She slid to a silver medal after placing 9th in the first run, highlighting the resilience she tries to showcase for her mentees. It also marked her first podium finish since becoming a mother.
“It builds my confidence going into these Games,” she said. “I can slide with the best of them when I can be in my best form. So it feels like a lot more things are within my control, knowing when I am at my best, I am one of the best.”
Curtis has relished passing on the knowledge she has accumulated in both serving her country and representing it on the world stage. Much of that wisdom cannot be found in your average classroom.
Athletes may be more digitally accessible than ever, but she emphasized that social media cannot replicate the individual connections she forges as a mentor. “We’re in a time of social media where we’re able to show glimpses of what we do,” Curtis said. “But when we have those live chats and we hear the crazy questions from these kids, you’re just like… okay, this is pretty cool.”
Sliding sports encapsulate how to let fear become fuel and the importance of committing fully even when you’re not sure what the next turn will hold.
While their Olympic runs will last only minutes, Curtis and Hollander’s lessons are evergreen.