Kaia Schmid may be a WorldTour cyclist now, but the 20-year-old American grew up on skis rather than two wheels.
“I used to be a super big skier,” she told CyclingTips of her formative years on the slopes of Killington, Vermont, and later Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
“I did Mogul skiing, and I competed up through high school in that. I did NorAms and World Cup qualifiers so I competed right below the World Cup level there. I did that for many years.”
“My family is a ski family and they’re super big into skiing. So I still have a bunch of roots in the ski community.”
Skiing may have been her first love but Schmid says she would also ride bikes alongside her skiing pursuits, “but it got to a point where it was like, I either needed to focus on skiing if I wanted to make it or I could have focused on cycling and see where that took me,” she said.
“And I just saw more of a pathway in cycling, and I had a stronger passion for it. So I decided to step away from the skis when I was about 16 years old.”
It paid off. In just a few short years of focusing on cycling – both track and road – Schmid had racked up a junior world title on the track and a second at the junior road world championships behind Zoe Backstedt. A step up to the WorldTour came calling with her current team, Human Powered Health, for the 2022 season, but it wouldn’t be an entirely smooth ride.
We’re here to talk about her struggles with RED-s (Relative Energy Deficiency in sport) – a fixation on weight and subsequent health struggles which sidelined her for the best part of a season, but from which she is now recovered.
“I literally have not weighed myself in probably seven months since I got my period back. Because that’s not what’s important. What’s important is fueling my body and making sure I’m eating the right foods and feeling good,” she said. “It’s a number and it only tells you one piece of a much larger puzzle.”
Even while she is recalling a difficult period of her fledgling career, Schmid is animated by her passion for sport and being active. She still skis whenever she gets the chance, including during the 2020 season when the pandemic forced bike racing to grind to a halt.
“It was kind of nice just during Covid I think when a lot of people were burning their matches and trying to stay fit when there was no racing I was staying really fresh and being able to ski,” she recalled. “And then when I got on the bike I was still super motivated and was able to build fitness so it worked out well.”
Now that she’s healthy, what are her goals on the bike?
“Ultimately it’s to keep developing. Coming out of juniors it’s definitely a transition because I went from being at the top of the sport and now I’m fighting for like 60th place some days,” she explained.
After a tumultuous few years, Schmid is taking a pragmatic approach to her development, which at just 20 years old she has ample time to hone.
“I like to think I can eventually make it to the top of the sport. I hope so, at some point. It’s just a matter of time. I wish by tomorrow I’d be, like, winning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Brugge de Panne but I’ve had to take a step back and just focus on developing and taking it step by step,” she said.
“I would love to be able to win a World Tour race one day, and I’d really love to represent the US at an elite worlds and the Olympics to get a medal one day, but I think, right now, it’s just going to take time, and I just need to focus on developing and getting better day by day.”
Whatever she achieves in her cycling career, though, Schmid plans to end up back on the slopes.
“I still ski in my free time. I still really want to go back to skiing after cycling because it’s something that I’ve had to sacrifice. Just because I really want to see where cycling can take me, you know, but I still definitely ski whenever I have the chance. And after cycling, I’m probably just going to be living on the ski slopes again.”
0 Commentaires