CARRABASSETT VALLEY — Jeremy Cota knows a few Russian words, among them, “privyet.”
It’s a less formal way of saying, “Hello,” and Cota smiled slightly as he said it fluently as he leaned against the railing of the deck at the base lodge at Sugarloaf recently.
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There’s a good chance that Cota, a 23-year-old Greenville native, will need to expand his Russian vocabulary in the next couple of years.
He could very well represent Maine and the United States in the Winter Olympics, which open Feb. 7, 2014 in Sochi, Russia.
Cota, a confident, poised young man, is a pretty good freestyle moguls skier. He finished the World Cup season ranked third in the world and recently won the U.S. national moguls championship, while also finishing second in duals.
But Cota doesn’t want to think too far ahead. “As a kid I dreamed about being an Olympic athlete,” he said. “Now that it’s closer to reality, my passion for getting there hasn’t changed. But some athletes put too much emphasis on the Olympics and lose track of what they’re doing.”
Cota doesn’t plan on doing that. His goal is simple: “Trying to get better at what I do every day.”
Cota, a 2007 graduate of Carrabassett Valley Academy, has progressed steadily as a member of the U.S. Ski Team. He was 14th in the world in moguls in 2010, fifth in 2011. He was ranked second for most of this year, before being overtaken by U.S. teammate Patrick Deneen.
“He’s been consistently climbing,” said Todd Schirman, the U.S. Ski Team freestyle program director. “He’s a perfect model for the consistency and development we like to see in the U.S.”
That’s not surprising to those who know Cota best.
According to his parents, Dave (the town manager of Carrabassett Valley) and Micki (an administrative assistant at CVA), Cota has always been among the best athletes in whatever sport he tried: baseball, soccer and even mountain biking. He was among Maine’s top high school mountain bikers — and continues to hit the trails in the offseason — but found the pull of freestyle skiing, with its two disciplines (mogul skiing and aerial jumps), too strong to ignore.
“You do have to sacrifice some goals to achieve a much bigger one,” said Cota. “As I got better in freestyle skiing, the more I had to sideline the other sports.”
Cota, who lives in Steamboat Springs, Colo., began skiing when he was 5 on now-defunct ski area at Big Moose Mountain and his father knew then — as Jeremy weaved among the lift chairs practicing his freestyle moves — that they had a budding star. The family moved to Carrabassett Valley from Greenville in 2000, and Cota attended CVA.
It was there that his career accelerated. He was the U.S. junior national champion in single and dual moguls in 2007. In 2008 and 2009, he was the NORAM Grand Prix season series champion, joining the U.S. Development ski team in 2008.
In 2009, he placed second in the U.S. Olympic trials, missing by one spot a chance to compete in the Vancouver Olympics.
And then his World Cup career took off when he joined the U.S. Ski Team, peaking this past winter with four second-place finishes among 13 events.
Cota’s best jumps are his back full (a back flip with a full rotation) and cork 7 (an off-axis jump with a 720 degree rotation). He’s currently working on a back double full (a back flip with a 720 rotation).
But it wasn’t just his skill that kept Cota going, especially when his training expenses were draining his bank accounts. “Here’s something,” said Dave Cota. “When Jeremy was 19, he went to Lake Placid to train as part of the (U.S. Ski) D team. The D team! He received no money from them, so he got a job waiting on tables at night to pay for his expenses.”
He did it, said Cota, “because I was pretty sure about what I was doing.”
Schirman said Cota’s approach to skiing is what separates him from others. He puts everything into his training, which includes strength and agility work in the gym, trampoline work (for the jumps), water ramping (skiing down a plastic sheet in the summer and landing in water) and offseason skiing.
“I love it,” said Cota. “I think one of my advantages is that I sort of enjoy the aspects that some people don’t enjoy, the process. I try to enjoy the journey and not just the end results.”
According to Schirman, that focus on the more mundane aspects of training gives Cota an advantage in competitions.
“He’s a professional at what he does,” said Schirman. “He checks off the boxes, per se when he’s in the gates, he doesn’t have to worry about (anything else).”
That drive to improve was born in Maine, where Cota honed his freestyle skills at Sugarloaf — not always a pleasant experience.
“Spring skiing at Sugarloaf is the best, and I’ve been all over the world, so I should know,” said Cota. “But Sugarloaf is a tough place. You ski in January and get frostbite on all your toes and fingers and you’re still trying to train. You have to be pretty dedicated. Those aren’t the easy times on Sugarloaf.
“Being from Sugarloaf, it teaches how to work hard and you don’t take things for granted.”
His success this year, said Cota, was humbling, but it was not entirely surprising.
“I sort of knew when I got into the sport if I put in full effort and was determined to be the best, there’s no reason I couldn’t be,” he said. “If anything, I’m more relieved that things are going as well as I planned they would go.”
He looks to improve his jumps next year because Cota knows nothing — even an Olympic berth — is guaranteed. The U.S. team is loaded with talented young skiers. Schirman said Cota has to improve his skills to continue earning podium finishes.
“And he’s doing that,” said Schirman.
His parents have no doubt he will continue to push himself to become his best.
“He’s been dreaming about this for so long, to be on the U.S. Ski Team and to get to the Olympics,” said Micki Cota, who has two binders full of her son’s career results. “Not many kids can realize their dreams and that’s what so unreal for me. He’s actually living it.”
Staff Writer Mike Lowe can be contacted at 791-6422 or at: mlowe@pressherald.com
Twitter: MikeLowePPH
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