Merch, moguls, and Missy Franklin: Ski Club Vail 14-year-old skier Ava Keenan does it all
Jim Keenan/Courtesy photo
Landing competitive swimmer Missy Franklin for an interview wasn’t just about 14-year-old Ava Keenan bringing in a big name for her podcast, The Happy Podcast. Talking to Franklin — a five-time Olympic gold medalist — served another purpose for the Ski and Snowboard Club Vail 14-year-old mogul skier: a chance to ask for advice.
“Everything she was doing at such a young age was amazing, and so I thought that I could take some of the things she was telling me and use them in my own career,” Keenan said.
Like Franklin, Keenan — who was featured in the Warren Miller film, “Daymaker” and named “Most Promising” in the Sportswomen of Colorado 2022 award lineup — has been pushing the envelope at a young age.
She won the Rocky Mountain Freestyle (RMF) rookie of the year award in 2021 after becoming one of only three 11-year-olds to win an RMF competition. Two years later, she captured the F13 national title and the F15 duals crown. Last year, she won the F15 title — as a 13-year-old. In her last two seasons, she has qualified for U.S. Freestyle Selections — an event where skiers compete for starts at American-based World Cups and NorAm events — but has been too young to participate.
Until now.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for years,” Keenan said, before adding that she used get upset by the age restriction. “But now that I’m here, I’m kind of glad that they did because I wouldn’t have been as ready the past two years or as happy with the results I would have got.”
U.S. Freestyle Selections are Dec. 13-15 at Winter Park Resort and features moguls and dual moguls events. Last year, SSCV’s Nash Lucas swept the top step of the podium in both. Keenan’s goal is to advance to the super finals, which would give her a good chance to qualify for the Jan. 4-7 FIS Freestyle Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
“I feel super ready,” she said. “I feel like I’m going to be a strong competitor.”
While Keenan turned things around for U.S. junior nationals in March, her 2023-24 campaign wasn’t all smooth sailing.
“I was just kind of on the struggle bus last year when it came to getting my turns better,” she said. “And I was getting discouraged because I felt like I was working really hard but I wasn’t seeing the results.”
She said she learned her biggest lessons when she didn’t stand atop the podium.
“I was really proud of how I was able to bounce back when things weren’t going great throughout the yea,r and I was able to keep my head up,” she said.
She’s been working to perfect her turns and improve her aerial package — traditionally her biggest strength — throughout the offseason. In the gym, she trains her absorption timing through box jumps. During her three on-snow camps in May, July, and October, she drills holding her direction and keeping the boots pointed down the hill. While last season’s aerial package was a back grab to a back “X,” this year, she’s dialed in her cork bottom air, honing it on course in Chile last month.
With longtime SSCV mogul program director John Dowling taking a two-year leave of absence to work privately with Liz Lemley on the World Cup, Keenan’s worked primarily with Freddy Mooney, who has slid into Dowling’s role.
“He’s a great coach,” Keenan said. “He’s really descriptive and detailed with his coaching, and I really like working with him. I think he’s made a huge difference in my turns and my airs as well.”
Outside of skiing, Keenan keeps herself busy. This June, she and her dad launched Kosak, a mogul-ski specific apparel line.
“Kids are always looking for baggy stuff, and in order to do that, you have to go XL and then cinch the waist like nobody’s business. We all had that problem,” Keenan said. “Our whole goal was to make ski pants that are baggy and fit in the waist.”
Even without a targeted advertising campaign, Kosak has done a few thousand dollars worth of sales, Keenan’s dad, Jim, said. A few SSCV skiers even sported the pants during the team’s October camp in Chile, where the locals gave positive reviews, he noted.
“We expect and hope to start seeing substantive selling after Thanksgiving and then December and January when people see them on the hill,” said Jim Keenan.
As far as her podcast goes, Ava Keenan has some more big names in the hopper. She plans to chat with Johnny Moseley in December and is hoping to have Lindsey Vonn on at some point. Clearly, whether she’s behind the mic, selling merchandise, or skiing moguls, she likes to go big.
In fact, when she was asked what performance she was most proud of last year, she didn’t reflect on any one of her numerous victories, but instead pondered a third-place finish in Aspen.
“I was the fastest girl there, had the best air package — I went so big on the bottom air that I cleared the landing,” she said. “I was really proud of how I decided to just go for it and not hold back.”
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