Next Level Skiing S8E3: Fun Comes First with Maggie Voisin
Next Level Skiing Podcast, S8 E3: Fun Comes First with Maggie Voisin
Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Maggie Voisin soared from her Whitefish, Montana, roots into three Olympics and 11 X Games, where she’s collected 7 slopestyle medals. Now 26, she’s bounced back from several injuries and surgeries to build a soaring career in front of the cameras, filming with Teton Gravity Research and announcing for the X Games. She’s navigated incredible pressure as one of the youngest American Winter Olympians, as devastating grief, finding strength and solace on skis.
Image by Jonathan Finch
Listen in as Maggie talks about transferring her slopestyle-honed mental fortitude over to big lines in Alaska, strategies for healing, recovering from “the hardest thing ever,” and inspiring the next generation of female rippers.
TOPICS
1:10 - Growing up in Whitefish. Dad was a semi-reformed ski bum.
2:00 - “Something in the water in Whitefish.” Tanner Hall. Tommy Moe. Parkin Costain.
3:50 - 15 years old and winning silver in first X Games months before skiing in the Olympics
4:20 - Younger sibling rippers
6:30 - The transition from a decade of teams, coaches and training to filming in AK
8:40 - Mental fortitude in slopestyle moving over to steep lines in Alaska
12:10 - Breathwork to settle nerves
13:40 - Calming concerns around injuries
14:30 - Four knee and one ankle surgeries
16:00 - Red light, sauna, yoga, breathing, stretching and mindset. “The body is powerful. It’s going to heal.”
17:40 - The importance of rest, meditation
21:30 - “The hardest thing ever.” Losing Michael to suicide.
23:40 - Living and carrying Michael’s legacy forward. “I walk through this life differently.”
26:40 - “They are everywhere.”
29:00 - A deep, internal knowing that the strength was there.
30:00 - “We are human beings who need community.”
31:00 - Announcing at the Winter X Games with deep knowledge and a feminine perspective
34:30 - Inspiring the next generation.
35:30 - Best advice: “Fun comes first.”
QUOTES
“The mind can just take over. We all know this.”
“I always take a deep breath, and on the exhale is when I drop, and I feel like that just really centers me.”
“In this world, we’re always athletes.”
“If I can live every day, half the way that [my brother] lived his 23 years, that’s what I wake up every day and remember.”
RESOURCES
Maggie Voisin Unleashed: An Exclusive Season Edit
For more listening, check out our full collection of "Next Level Skiing" podcasts here.
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Next Level Skiing Recorded by Jason Blevins.
Jason Blevins is a Colorado journalist and co-founder of The Colorado Sun who has been writing about mountain towns -- and skiing -- for nearly 30 years. Every week Jason's Outsider newsletter from The Colorado Sun delivers news and insights into the changing American West, with articles covering the businesses, industries, policies, characters, and of course ski news, that shape communities and cultures on the evolving Western Slope of Colorado. Jason lives in Crested Butte with his wife and a dog named Gravy. Click over to coloradosun.com/outsider to learn more.
