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BIOGRAPHY

Jeremy Bloom
	BIOGRAPHY | GALLERY | GOSSIP

Jeremy Bloom was born 2 April 1982, in Fort Collins Colorado USA. An Olympic skier at age 19, he started skiing when he was three. He was a competitive alpine racer before turning to moguls. He made it to the 2002 Olympics. Leading up to the Olympics, he was garnering attention for his toned and extremely physically fit body. He consistently ranked in the top ten of "most sought after for information" on Olympic athletes.

At university he plays a lot of football! This multi-talented athlete postponed attending school on a football scholarship in order to follow his dream of participating in the Olympics.

It was an urge that Bloom first experienced at age three, when he learned to ski at the Keystone Colorado Resort. His mom, Char, an instructor there, taught Jeremy the basics, but his grandfather Jerry Bloom provided the incentive by tossing candy bars down the mountain during family ski weekends. For young Jeremy, who grew up in a health-food-only household, the prospect of a Hershey bar was enough to overcome his fears on Keystone's steepest trails. Soon Char and Jeremy's father, Larry, were looking back on black-diamond mogul runs to see their youngest son bumping along after them. "People would stop and stare," says Char. "They'd ask, 'Why aren't you entering him in competitions?'"

Char assented when Jeremy was five. His first competition was the Small World Cup, a local Alpine event. On his first run Jeremy tucked in and shot straight down the hill. "See those flags?" Char asked her son afterward. "This time, go around them." He nodded, heard the beep and ignored the flags again. Char threw up her hands in amused acquiescence: Her son, it seemed, was destined for straight-line skiing. He accomplished that goal; in fact, Bloom won the overall World Cup moguls' title in his first full season on the circuit.

Bloom's motto reflects his unrelenting drive to be the best in his athletic endeavors: "Compete like you are number one, train like you are number two."

Question: Is your sport really as dangerous as it looks to novices? Is that part of the appeal?

JEREMY BLOOM: In skiing, spectators love big falls. Obviously we don't like to be the one taking the fall, but it makes very good competition.

Question: Compare the emotions of winning a state high school football championship with those of winning a World Cup medal?

JEREMY BLOOM: Actually, the way our high school won the state championship is kind of like a fairy tale. We won in the last play of the game. Growing up with all your friends playing football through elementary school and middle school, talking about we're going to win the state championship some day and then actually doing it in our home stadium in the last second of play. Placing third over there (Tignes) was a huge difference. It's a totally different feeling in skiing because its very individual; in football when you win something like that you have 100 other people that just want through the exact same thing to celebrate with. In skiing, everyone is happy for you but you're obviously the most happy for yourself. Over in Tignes, I had a lot of pressure on myself because if I didn't get a top 12 over there I had to go back to watching events I've been competing in for six years and I'm not a huge fan of, so it was just really important for me to do well over there and I'm just fortunate enough to come back here to Steamboat and continue skiing.

Question: How did you get started in skiing? And where did it fit in with your other sports?

JEREMY BLOOM:I lived in Loveland, Colo., which is two hours from a ski resort and I was the youngest in my family and I was pretty much brought up skiing on snow when I could walk. In my family it was just like a tradition every weekend, we had a place in Dillon and we'd just go up and have fun and ski all year. My brother and sister did gates and my first gates competition I was five years old, I think. I didn't get the concept of going around the gates so I just went straight and I was disqualified. I think ever since then I was in freestyle.

Question: What should spectators look for in moguls?

JEREMY BLOOM: Look for the air, it's the best thing about our sport in freestyle and for those who don't know what it is, it's a bunch of moguls on a 250m course with 2 airs and it's judged 50% turns, 25% on air and 25% on speed.