Gangwon 2024: Meet Liz Lemley, moguls Youth Olympic double gold medallist with a licence to fly - and an Air Force dream
The latest prodigy from the Ski and Snowboard Club Vail, who clinched two gold medals at the Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympics, is also an avid aircraft pilot. 'I just want to keep flying for the rest of my life,' she said.
Freestyle Skiing
Imagine executing spectacular flips in the air with your skis and then performing similar acrobatics in the sky while piloting a plane.
USA’s new freeski moguls sensation, Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Lemley, has experienced both.
The 18-year-old from Vail, Colorado, outclassed the competition at the Jeongseon Ski Resort, taking away two gold medals in the dual moguls competition at the Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG).
She first claimed the title in the mixed event along with teammate Porter Puff on Saturday (27 January) and went on to secure individual gold the following day, beating Australia's Lottie Lodge in the big final.
“It feels pretty good, I guess I know what it's like to do duals in an Olympic setting and I feel pretty prepared now,” Lemley said to Olympics.com following the competition, which was streamed live on Olympic Channel.
Her two golds represent a confidence boost, with the new format making its Winter Olympic Games debut at Milano Cortina 2026: “I'm always going to have medal ambitions and I'll just do my best”
Liz Lemley: A moguls prodigy
Liz started skiing when she was just 9 months old and performed her first flips at 9 years old.
“It was my dad's idea. After college, he watched the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He was really inspired by moguls and he wanted to get me and my brother into mogul skiing. So we started skiing really early and got in the moguls programme,” she revealed, adding that her father only competed once.
Lemley has always been a prodigious talent. At 15 years old, she made her World Cup debut - one of the youngest to do so. To date, she has recorded five top-5 finishes in moguls, including a second place in Ruka, Finland, last month.
The freeskier, who also has a passion for cross-country cycling - is coached by Freddy Mooney, the man who helped Canada’s Olympic champion Mikael Kingsbury dominate the men's side of the sport.
She also grew up in the renowned Vail Ski club, which has produced several Winter Olympians over the years: “At the 2018 Winter Olympics in PeyongChang, half of the moguls Olympic team was from Vail, so that was pretty cool. And I think John Dowling, the ski director there, he really builds up a lot of athletes and has a lot of young athletes in moguls that are really good.”
Liz Lemley of the USA in action in the dual moguls competition at Gangwon 2024.
Liz Lemley: A future in the Air Force or Space X?
At the age of 17, Lemley earned a license to fly four-seaters and prop planes, and she loves doing it on her own.
“It feels good, like fun. My dad's a pilot and he has his own plane, so I've been flying in that most of my life, and I've just really loved flying,” she said.
She utilises her ability to perform aerial tricks even when holding a plane yoke: “I have a friend who has an aerobatic plane and that can do flips and stuff. So when I go up with him, it's always cool to do flips in the airplane. I guess I have a pretty good air awareness for moguls skiing, so it translates pretty well."
According to the US Ski and Snowboard website she dreams of joining the Air Force or Space X one day: “That'd be cool, I'd love to fly a fighter jet," she chuckled.
"I think my dream would be [to fly] an aerobatic plane, to really fly and do a lot of aerobatics, but I just really want to keep flying the rest of my life, so I don't really care where just maybe commercial pilot, maybe just for fun.”