Esther Freeman '01 has a tendency to trip when she's walking. But with skis on her feet, she is one of the world's most graceful athletes.
Freeman, 18, is a member of the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team. On the slopes, she combines the agility of a gymnast with the balance of a skier.
It is little wonder that Freeman is more coordinated on skis than on her feet -- she learned to ski and walk at about the same time. Freeman's family in Newton, Massachusetts introduced her to the sport when she was two years old. Her family skied during every weekend and vacation, and her brother Noah was a ski racer.
Her parents, Freeman said, "basically just stuck me on skis." She said learning at such a young age helped her reach her present skill level. "I think skiing is one of those sports that you have to grow up doing to be completely at ease," she said.
Influenced by her brother, Freeman trained as a racer until she was nine years old. Bored with racing, she decided to give freestyle skiing a try.
She joined the Waterville Valley Black and Blue Trail Smashers, a New Hampshire ski club which has "a legacy of outstanding athletes," according to coach Nick Preston. "She comes off as a very level-headed person, but she has a very aggressive quality to her that allows her to meet those kinds of challenges."
Freestyle skiing has three subdivisions -- acro, aerials and moguls. Freeman described acro as a cross between gymnastics and figure skating. As music plays, the skier flips, jumps and performs linking maneuvers, such as cartwheels and spins that the skier executes between jumps.
Aerials consist of a series of jumps. At the skier launches off of a jump, she flips backwards and twists. She flips once off a single jump, twice off a double jump and three times off a triple jump.
When skiers travel down a mogul run, judges rate them according to speed and turning ability. In the mogul event, the skier takes two jumps on the way down the mountain and performs upright aerials, which means she jumps but does not flip.
Freeman competed in all three types of freestyle skiing until last year, when she decided to focus on acro. She said, "It is the most difficult, and you can combine everything. You have to flip, jump, be graceful, have a lot of endurance and make everything look easy."
She said she loves the challenge, and prefers acro because it reminds her of dancing, another activity she enjoys.
Freeman has risen through the ranks, from Eastern Division competitions against skiers from the east coast, to eastern championships, to her first U.S. Junior National competition, in which she competed against skiers from accross the country.
After earning a top five rank in Junior Nationals, the "D" team of the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team accepted Freeman when she was 15 making her, their youngest member by seven years.
Freeman has always been one of the youngest members of her teams, but it does not seem to have bothered her.
"Esther has a very strong mentality, and she wasn't a person who was really ever overtly intimidated by situations," Preston said. "She has a lot of self-confidence, and she might not strike you like that."
With the "D" team, she competed in the North American tour against other developmental national teams from countries including Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Along with a few other members of the development team who were invited, she skied in her first World Cup when she was 16.
She was promoted to the C team during her senior year of high school, allowing her to ski in the World Tour against people from almost every country in the world.
As a result of placing third in the Junior World Championships, Freeman was promoted to the "B" team, where she will ski this winter in the World Cup.
"She is someone who has excelled to the highest levels of the sport nationally speaking, yet she still has to prove herself internationally," Preston said. "She has that goal and has territory to get herself involved to meet the challenges of international competition."
This winter, Freeman will begin in North America and move to Europe if she is successful. Although a freshman, Freeman will be on leave this Winter term to train and compete.
During her secondary school years, Freeman's skiing forced her to live "a double life." She attended a prep school which allowed her to miss only five to 10 days of school per year. As a result, she flew to competitions the night before they occurred, skied the next morning without having practiced on the hill, and flew home to attend school the next day.
The only member of the team still in school, she brought a laptop computer to events and faxed homework to her teachers.
Along with the logistical challenges, Freeman worked to overcome her nervousness in competitions. Freeman said, "When I'm at the top of a course, I just kind of laugh at myself. I think it's so amusing, standing at the top of this course. I think, 'What do I think I'm doing?'"
Josh Berman '00, a member of the Stratton Mountain Freestyle Team in southern Vermont, has trained with and competed against Freeman for the past six years. "She seems very easy going, but I guess she's very competitive at heart, because she really sticks with it. She is a very outgoing, friendly person," he said.
While Freeman sees winning the Junior National competition last year and placing third in the Junior World championship as her greatest accomplishments, she said the most rewarding benefits of competition are the personal relationships she has formed through participation in the sport. Freeman's closest friends are from Japan, Sweden, Australia and Spain.
"I think the reason I still ski, since it takes up so much time and so much of my life, is because of the people," she said.
Freeman presently exercises with calisthenics and participates on the Dartmouth Sailing Team to keep in shape. She sees this coming winter as an experiment, because she will be able to focus on skiing without worrying about school.
She hopes to compete in the World Cup, ski in the 2002 Olympic games and eventually become an orthopedic surgeon.
