Ski and Snowboard Club Vail teammates push each other on the snow and singletrack
Courtesy photo
You can find Freedom Bennett next to Peter Kan on snow, singletrack and in the stat sheet. The Ski and Snowboard Club Vail Nordic skiers and Vail Junior Cycling club teammates have a way of pushing each other to the top of the results in both activities.
“I know they enjoy getting out together for training and racing,” said Dan Weiland, who guided the Vail Junior Cycling program’s two entities — VSSA and Eagle Valley — to a 1-2 team finish at state and was SSCV’s longtime Nordic program director. “In sports like ours, it is nice to have someone to push you but more importantly relate to what you are doing.”
“I think being close as friends — and results-wise — it pushes me to go harder in training,” added Bennett, who won three of the four Colorado High School Cycling League regular season mountain bike races this fall. The Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy sophomore went on to finish seventh out of 150 riders in the junior varsity boys race at the state meet in Glenwood Springs. Kan captured four podiums, including a pair of wins before going on to place fourth in the freshman boys event at state.
“The season was pretty good,” said Kan. “I definitely could have done better at state.”
Both athletes have high aspirations going into the Nordic ski season, which kicked off with the Rocky Mountain Nordic Junior National Qualifier in Steamboat Springs earlier in December and culminates at Soldier Hollow with the Junior National Championships in March. Last year, Kan recorded a 14th-place finish at the national meet in Lake Placid, where skiers dealt with every kind of weather imaginable, including rain. While Bennett said he struggled in the generally poor conditions, per their usual arrangement, just two seconds separated the friends in the individual start that week.
Support Local Journalism
“The snow was really bad,” Kan admitted. “One of my goals after the meet was to get better at skiing in the slush.”
The freshman leaned into biking and running over the summer, logging 8-10 hours a week and meeting with teammates for the occasional afternoon rollerski. He raced all but one Vail Recreation District mountain bike series event leading up to his high school season. Bennett spent more time in the saddle than on skis, too, even placing second overall in the Bighorn Gravel 50-mile event in June.
“My descending on a gravel bike isn’t good, so I had to make up time on the climbs and the flats,” he said.
Both have translated their fall fitness to the skinny skis. In the interval start classic race on Dec. 20 in Steamboat Springs, Kan finished second out of 38 skiers in the U16 category and Bennett rounded out the podium in third. The pair chased each other around the Howelsen rodeo grounds again the following day. This time, Bennett was eighth and Kan was 15 seconds back in 10th.
“Peter and Freedom seem to really enjoy each other’s company,” said Nordic program director Eric Pepper. “They get along well personally and that carries over to their training and racing as well.”
The friends met in Eagle at the first bike race of the 2017 season.
“He cut the course and I was drafting him, so we did a half lap,” Bennett recalled with a chuckle. They’ve since stuck it out, whether it’s scrolling Instagram reels, shooting hoops, playing video games or racking up training hours.
“When you have someone else that wants to get out the door with you and wants to compete with you, it can make for a really enjoyable and beneficial dynamic where people improve together,” Pepper said.
When asked about what they admire in the other person, Kan answered: “I like how Freedom doesn’t give up easily. At nationals, he fell a lot, but he didn’t just end it there — he kept going.”
Bennett believes Kan’s toughness is one of his best traits.
“He had shoulder injuries during Nordic season, but he didn’t miss any races and rarely missed training,” he said. “He just kept on going.”
Both athletes are hoping for a possible podium finish at nationals this spring. Looking even farther ahead, Kan — whose father was a continental level cyclist and wax tech for the Slovakian national team at the 2010 Winter Olympics — would like to someday compete at the Games himself.
Bennett dreams of being the next Sepp Kuss, the Durango-born cyclist who won the 2023 Vuelta a España. On the ski side, he’d love to race at CU or DU and admires the local athletes who have gone onto the NCAA ranks. He said his favorite American Nordic skier is Haley Brewster.
“I mean it’s just pretty cool. She lives in Avon, I live in Avon, she skied for SSCV, we ski for SSCV,” Bennett said. “It’s just cool to see that you can come from a small town and ski on World Cups.”
