Two northern Michigan athletes will compete in Milan, Italy next week in the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Kaila Kuhn is from Boyne City and started skiing when she was 18 months old. According to Kuhn's Instagram, her parents put her on skis at the Boyne Mountain Resort.
She was a gymnast until the age of 12. Her current teammate, Winter Vinecki of Gaylord, encouraged her to switch to aerial skiing. Kuhn and Vinecki both compete in freestyle skiing for women's aerials.
The sport has athletes ski down a hill and launch themselves into the air on a ramp. While in the air, they execute a series of flips and twists, according to NBC Olympics.
“She saw video of me on a trampoline and thought that I could become a really good aerials skier because I have the perfect background in ski racing and gymnastics,” Kuhn told The Park Record.
Kuhn made her Olympic debut at the 2022 winter games in Beijing. She was ranked eighth in the world after competing.
Kuhn told KCRA News that athletes can perform a single, double or triple number of flips in the air. Triples are considered the hardest category to compete in.
Before her 2024-2025 season, she transitioned from competing in double aerials to triples.
"All of the men in the world are competing triples, whereas maximum eight to ten women on the Olympic year are actually competing triples," Kuhn said to KCRA.
Kuhn is the youngest American to win an individual world title in aerials at age 21, according to Team USA.
"This is what I do every single day. I eat, I sleep, I breathe this sport," Kuhn said to UpNorthLive. "This is running through my veins right now. It's the only thing I think about all the time."
Vinecki has said she began aerial skiing at the age of 12.
When Vinecki was nine years old, she lost her father to prostate cancer. She then formed Team Winter, a nonprofit organization focused on raising money for prostate cancer research and creating awareness.
She's been apart of the U.S. Ski Team since 2016, after winning the North American Tour.
"I've worked on some of the things that maybe I was lacking before the last games," Vinecki said to UpNorthLive. "I'm now doing triple twisting, triple backflips, whereas I was only doing doubles at the last games."
Vinecki said she did not have time for an interview with WCMU before leaving for Italy. Neither Kuhn or the communications team at U.S. Ski and Snowboard responded to WCMU's multiple requests for comment for this story.
They two will compete in first qualifying rounds of the women's aerials competition on Tuesday, Feb. 17 and will be broadcasted on NBC.
