{"id":123549,"date":"2026-04-05T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/21-year-old-olympian-with-durango-roots-meets-fans-at-purgatory-resort-downtown\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T11:00:00","slug":"21-year-old-olympian-with-durango-roots-meets-fans-at-purgatory-resort-downtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/21-year-old-olympian-with-durango-roots-meets-fans-at-purgatory-resort-downtown\/","title":{"rendered":"21-year-old Olympian with Durango roots meets fans at Purgatory Resort Downtown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Olympian
Olympian Charlie Mickel autographs a hat for Silas Wenger, 11, as his mom Laura Wenger looks on. Mickel visited Durango, his hometown, on Saturday for a meet and greet at Purgatory Sports Downtown. He competed in the men\u2019s moguls during the 2026 Winter Olympics. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Charlie Mickel, 21-year-old Olympian mogul skier with roots in Durango, met fans young and old at Purgatory Sports Downtown on Saturday to take selfies, share stories and sign autographs.<\/p>\n

Mickel had an impressive winter season, claiming the U.S. national title in men\u2019s moguls at the Toyota U.S. Freestyle Championships at Palisades Tahoe on March 29, taking fifth place at the FIS Freestyle Moguls World Cup in Nanto, Toyama, Japan, on Feb. 28, and representing Team USA at the 2026 Winter Olympics, according to Purgatory Resort, a sponsor of Mickel.<\/p>\n

Although Mickel moved out of Durango to Park City, Utah, at 16 years old so he could train, he spent his earlier days training on the slope at Chapman Hill Ski Area and Purgatory Resort.<\/p>\n

He said becoming an Olympian level athlete has required a lot of sacrifice and dedication, but he is keen on visiting his hometown of Durango more frequently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to visit as much as I can, but with my training schedule it is a little rare, and more rare than I\u2019d like,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He is trying to incorporate summer trips to Durango into his summer training schedule. The end of May and early June is a timeframe that is non-negotiable, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to enjoy the white water. I want to see my friends when they\u2019re coming back from college,\u201d he said. \u201c \u2026 I absolutely love coming to Durango and being in the house I grew up in, in the town I grew up in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mickel\u2019s fans were excited for him to visit Durango this weekend, too. They formed a line in Purgatory Resort Downtown on Saturday, eager for the opportunity to talk to the athlete and get an autograph.<\/p>\n

Durango resident Kristi Sage brought her 10-year-old triplets to the ski shop to meet Mickel.<\/p>\n

She said her son, also named Charlie, has won first place in U-10 ski races and is an exceptional judge of other contestants, often giving them scores extremely close to what the professional judges land on.<\/p>\n

Charlie made sure to wake up at 2:15 a.m. to watch Mickel compete in the Olympics last season, she said.<\/p>\n

\"Olympian
Olympian Charlie Mickel appeared for a meet-and-greet with fans at Purgatory Sports Downtown. Mickel competed in the men\u2019s moguls during the 2026 Winter Olympics. He said he\u2019s known since at least middle school he wanted to compete in the Olympics \u2013 now that he\u2019s made it there, he is determined to take home a gold medal. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt was really neat for them to meet a role model and see that they could do bigger things,\u201d Kristi said after her children finished talking to Mickel.<\/p>\n

Mickel said he was skiing in competitive events when he was as young as 5 years old. As he got older and developed his skills, he kept reaching higher levels of competition.<\/p>\n

U.S. Ski & Snowboard\u2019s Olympian biography for Mickel says he had a breakout season in 2024-25, beating almost all of his personal bests and earned his first podium at World Cup finals in Livigno.<\/p>\n

He is a two-time National Champion and the 2023-24 NorAm Cup Overall Champion, U.S. Ski & Snowboard says.<\/p>\n

All of that aside, he said the advice he was given for preparing for the Olympics is \u201cthe best way to prepare for the Olympics is to have gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he has struggled with the pressure of competition before, but what keeps him grounded is remembering why he competes at all \u2013 because he loves skiing, moguls specifically.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to have fun and enjoy myself. And I\u2019ve found there\u2019s a lot of times where I have to reiterate that with coaches, because coaches will see the potential in a young athlete and they want to develop you, they want to see you succeed and become a star in the sport. But ultimately, it has to be fulfilling to yourself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mickel said he knew at least as early as middle school he wanted to be an Olympian-level athlete. He made it to that level \u2013 but he is still determined to take home a gold medal someday.<\/p>\n

\"Olympian
Olympian Charlie Mickel had an impressive winter season, claiming the U.S. national title in men\u2019s moguls at the Toyota U.S. Freestyle Championships at Palisades Tahoe on March 29, taking fifth place at the FIS Freestyle Moguls World Cup in Nanto, Toyama, Japan, on Feb. 28, and representing Team USA at the 2026 Winter Olympics. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

He provided several pieces of advice for aspiring athletes:<\/p>\n

Sleep, nutrition, mobility, training and intention all add together for one\u2019s overall performance.<\/list-item>Every day is an opportunity to improve \u2013 and an opportunity to digress.<\/list-item>Disciplined, daily training will net in exponential results.<\/list-item>Whoever wants the win the most \u2013 and puts in the appropriate work \u2013 will beat the competition.<\/list-item><\/div>\n

Mickel said he wouldn\u2019t have achieved the success he\u2019s had so far without the support of his parents, who saw him through trials and errors such as finding the right ski clubs, and who provided him emotional support along the way.<\/p>\n

He said he wants to pay that support forward and invited aspiring athletes to reach out to him for advice at the email in his Instagram <\/a>bio. He added he is interested in supporting area ski programs and he thinks he has helpful advice to share.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charlie Mickel says discipline is key to high-level competition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[950,712,346,1211],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-123549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-durango","tag-purgatory","tag-sports","tag-winter-olympics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123549"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=123549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}