Derek Krueger, former Bainbridge resident and Kenston student, was set to compete Feb. 17 in the Winter Olympics in Livigno, Italy as a member of the United States Freestyle Aerial Ski Team.
Derek Krueger, former Bainbridge resident and Kenston student, was set to compete Feb. 17 in the Winter Olympics in Livigno, Italy as a member of the United States Freestyle Aerial Ski Team.
To become an Olympian is an amazing accomplishment that very few athletes obtain. However, three former Geauga County residents have become United States Freestyle Aerial Skiing Olympians.
In addition, others from Geauga County have made the United States Freestyle Aerial Ski Team and have competed on the North American Tour (NorAM) and the International Federation of Skiing (FIS) World Cup Tour.
With Krueger making the 2026 Winter Olympic Team, he joins former West Geauga students, Mariano Ferrario and Brian Currutt as Geauga County Olympians who have competed in Freestyle Aerial Skiing.
All three were initially coached by Chesterland resident Bill Harris.
Other elite aerial freestyle skiers have also gotten their start or have trained here in Geauga County with Coach Harris at Mont Chalet Freestyle Aerial Training Center in Chesterland. In fact, these athletes include 2022 Olympic Gold Medalist, Justin Schoenfeld, and 2026 Freestyle Aerial Skiing Olympians Connor Curran, Quinn Dehlinger and Kyra Dossa.
Also, athletes from the area including Matt Flesher, Chip Milner and Ashton Salwan from Chagrin Falls and Nevin Brown (Streetsboro) trained with Coach Harris and went on to compete for the U.S. Ski team.
How it All Started
The impetus for the development of freestyle aerial skiers in Geauga County began with the vision of Chesterland resident Coach Bill Harris.
Harris, a West Geauga alum, was not actually a skier growing up in Geauga County.
As a high school student, Harris was a wrestler helping to start the first wrestling team at West Geauga High School.
It was not until after high school that Harris got involved in skiing.
After graduation, Harris began working at a local ski area, Mont Chalet (which was located on Caves road close to Patterson Fruit Farm).
“I got a job (at Mont Chalet) and fell in love with skiing,” Harris said.
Harris then left the area to go to school for hotel and restaurant management.
After a few years of managing a Holiday Inn in Rochester, New York, Harris returned to Chesterland to manage the Mont Chalet ski area.
After Mont Chalet closed in the mid 1970s, Harris became the manager at Alpine Valley.
While managing Alpine Valley, the ski patrol told him that kids were building ski jumps in the middle of the slopes. These jumps were dangerous for skiers who were not expecting them.
“After a couple meetings, and hearing the same complaints, I said okay, I’ll start a freestyle program, and I’ll build a jump,” Harris said. “I put up a poster in the lodge saying that we are going to start a freestyle program. And the first meeting we had over 100 kids show up.”
After starting the Alpine Valley Freestyle Aerial Ski program in 1983, Harris narrowed the team down to twenty skiers.
Then, that next summer, Harris and his staff built a water ramp into the lake at Alpine Valley so that the team could train during the summer months.
“From that point on, we started producing a lot of talent,” Harris said.
Throughout his career, Harris said that most of his coaching is done in the summer utilizing the water ramp. He explained that freestyle aerial skiing is too dangerous to learn on a ramp with snow on it.
“Everybody learns how to jump, and how to do aerials jumping off a water ramp and landing in the water,” Harris said.
In training his athletes, Harris coaches students at the Mont Chalet Freestyle Aerial Training Center for about three or four years where they learn the important technical skills to become proficient aerial skiers.
When training his athletes, Harris helps them learn to become proficient in doing single back flips, which takes about two to three years.
Known as an innovator in the sport of Freestyle Aerial Skiing, Coach Harris received the 2022 Freestyle Development Coach of the Year Award from U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association.
Milner, Ferrario, and Currutt Excel at Alpine Valley
After beginning the Alpine Valley Aerial Freestyle Ski Team in 1983, Coach Harris said that the program took off.
In fact, one of his first athletes to have success on the world’s stage was Chip Milner from Chagrin Falls.
Milner was a member of the United States Freestyle Aerial Ski Team and competed on the FIS World Cup Tour.
Throughout his career, Milner competed in FIS events between 1988 and 1994.
After retiring from professional skiing, Milner has coached Freestyle Aerial Skiing for WinSport Canada at the Canada Olympic Park and has trained elite level freestyle aerial skiers including 2026 Team Canada Olympian, Andrew Longino.
In addition, two other athletes from the Alpine Valley Freestyle Ski Team went on to have great success at the national and international levels, including West Geauga students and former Chesterland residents, Brian Currutt and Mariano Ferrario.
Growing up in Chesterland, Currutt said he began skiing in elementary school when his mom began working at Alpine Valley as part of the ski patrol.
Currutt has fond memories of skiing in the Tuesday night ski races at Alpine Valley.
As Currutt improved his skiing, he became interested in trying out for the Alpine Valley Freestyle Ski Team, which he made when he was in 7th grade.
While on the team, an important part of Currutt’s development occurred when Coach Harris took him and a couple other teammates to Lake Placid, New York for a 1990 summer training camp for top United States Freestyle Aerial Skiers.
At this camp, skiers from Alpine Valley finished first, second, and third in a camp competition.
Coach Harris told Cleveland Plain Dealer sportswriter George Sweda that he was just hoping to use the experience to see how the Alpine Valley Freestyle Team would fare against other top programs from around the nation.
“To think that the top three came from Alpine Valley is unreal,” Harris told sportswriter George Sweda.
Currutt emphasized the importance of the success at Lake Placid in the summer of 1990.
“This is where I basically say the rest is history because we got our first taste of the real freestyle with a real close look at the U.S. Ski Team because they were there training and Lake Placid was the only facility for many years,” Currutt said.
“When I went up there in the summer of 1990, I thought I was hooked before, now, I was really hooked.”
After graduating from West Geauga in 1992, Currutt attended Ohio State. As an elite skier, he attended classes during the Fall and Spring quarters and competed during the winter.
Currutt and Ferrario then moved to Salt Lake City where they continued to train and compete at an elite level.
Ferrario was a member of the United States Ski Team from 1994 to 2002 and competed for nine years on the FIS World Cup Tour. In 1998, Ferrario became an Olympian competing in the Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan where he finished 15th.
Currutt made the United States Ski Team in 1996 and qualified for the World Championships in 1997. Currutt was on Team USA until 2003.
In 2002, Currutt became an Olympian competing in Freestyle Aerial Skiing at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics where he finished 6th.
After retiring from competitive skiing in 2003, Currutt was also the assistant head coach of the United States Freestyle Aerial Ski Team from 2006-2011.
“I went back and coached and had five really great years with the U.S. Ski Team from 2006 to Spring of 2011,” Currutt said.
While coaching the United States Ski team, Currutt coached 2009 World Champion Ryan St. Onge and 2010 Silver Medalist Jeret Peterson.
Currutt said that one of the important things that he did while coaching the United States Ski Team was to start the Elite Aerial Development Program (EADP).
“These kids, Derek, Ashton, and Connor were part of the EADP. I can remember either just moving back to Cleveland or coming back and visiting when they were between 12, 13, and 14 and they were getting their start at Bill’s and they were beginning to find their way into this EAD Program.”
“It really led to these kids’ success because they got their start with Bill. Bill is an amazing coach, he has been doing this for a long time. He has a vast amount of knowledge and he has the whole training facility right in his backyard.”
“It’s an incredible set up for these guys to get their career started and then move on from there.”
Krueger, Curran, Dehlinger, and Dossa Compete in 2026 Winter Olympics
Benefitting from the work of Harris and Currutt, Krueger (from Bainbridge), and Curran and Dehlinger (both from the Cincinnati area) all trained under Coach Harris at the Mont Chalet Freestyle Aerial Training Center.
Also, Dossa from Brecksville who was a state champion gymnast at Walsh Jesuit High School, spent time learning freestyle aerial skiing from Coach Harris while she competed for the Park City Utah Ski and Snowboard Team.
Krueger started skiing here in Geauga County at Alpine Valley when he was just four years old.
While growing up in Bainbridge and attending Kenston Schools, Krueger played many sports including lacrosse which he started playing in fourth grade as part of the Kenston Youth Lacrosse organization. As he got to middle school he began to focus on lacrosse and skiing.
During his middle school years, Krueger said that Kenston would organize Friday ski nights and a lot of his friends and classmates would go skiing together.
“During middle school, I was probably skiing I’d say three or four nights a week, every single week, throughout the whole winter,” Krueger said.
It was also during middle school, at the age of 12, that Krueger began to train to be a freestyle aerial skier. He trained with Coach Harris at the Mont Chalet Aerial Freestyle Training Center which Harris built in his backyard in the early 1990s after returning to coaching while working for Mr. Excavator.
“(Mont Chalet) is kind of like a summer training facility and you get to practice back flips into a pond,” Krueger said. “So I would go off a plastic surface ski jump and land in a pond. That’s how I practiced my ski tricks all summer long. And that’s kind of how I first got into freestyle skiing.”
During his training with Coach Harris while in middle school, Krueger competed on the east coast circuit.
“Every single weekend, I left school early and (we) would drive to somewhere in New York or Pennsylvania and go compete in regional events,” Krueger said.
Krueger trained for two years with Coach Harris before moving to the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, New York to train with the Elite Aerial Development Program at the age of 14.
“That’s when I started taking Aerials super seriously,” Krueger said. “I took fully online high school. I was training five, six days a week non-stop.”
Krueger began competing as an elite and professional freestyle aerial skier on the NorAM and FIS World Cup Tour in 2018. Throughout his years as an elite skier, Krueger accumulated 6 podium finishes and is currently ranked 17th in the World Cup Tour standings.
To make the 2026 Olympic Team, Krueger said he worked as hard as possible for the last four years.
“This winter we had six opportunities to compete on the World Cup Tour and those results pretty much tell us if we make the team or not,” Krueger said.
After facing adversity in the first two competitions, Krueger said that he had some of his best all-time finishes in the final four competitions which helped propel him to the Olympics.
Being a 2026 Olympian has been an awesome experience Krueger said.
“We were able to enjoy the full opening ceremony in Milan which was super special,” Krueger said. “One of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced. Then the day after that we drove up to Livigno where I am at right now.”
Because the Freestyle Aerial Ski competition did not start until later in the Olympic Games, Krueger and his teammates have been able to relax and enjoy the Olympic experience as they have gone to other events to support Team USA athletes.
Krueger and his teammates compete in Aerial qualifying events on Feb. 17 as they look to qualify for the finals. The Women’s Aerial Finals will be held on Feb. 18 followed by the Men’s Aerial Finals on Feb. 19.
Although Krueger is a professional athlete and an Olympian, he is also a college student at the University of Utah where he is studying Tourism and Hospitality Management.
“When I am done competing in Aerials, I would like to continue to grow my fly fishing guide service,” Krueger said.
Krueger, Currutt, and Harris Reflect on the Journey
In training and coaching athletes to become Olympians, Krueger, Currutt, and Harris reflected on their journey.
In reflecting on his time training with Coach Harris at Mont Chalet in Chesterland, Krueger said that it was a positive, encouraging experience where the emphasis was on practicing as much as possible.
“The whole program, he just trained me in a positive hard working environment,” Krueger said. “Some of these guys that I started training with when I was 12 years old, I’m still competing with to this day.”
In reflecting on his career as a professional skier and an Olympian, Krueger said it has been a fun experience.
“It’s all just really fun,” Krueger said.
Currutt spoke of how the sport of freestyle aerial skiing has grown tremendously and the impact that Coach Harris has had.
“I’m glad I don’t have to jump against these guys anymore, because they’re really good,” Currutt said. “The sport continues to move forward, and boundaries continue to get pushed, and things that I thought were difficult and not the norm have become the norm in competition, like the five twists, and the quick twisting triple backflip.”
He continued, “Bill Harris is the best, I was one of the first, but he has helped a lot of kids realize their dreams. I got to give Bill all of the credit in the world for doing that. Someday it’s going to end and I’m glad that all these guys have been able to experience it, going out to his place and being coached by him, because Bill’s awesome. None of us would be where we were without him.”
In reflecting on his career coaching elite freestyle aerial skiers, Coach Harris said that it has been a lot of fun.
“It’s been really a lot of fun, amazing,” Harris said. “It’s gone further than I’ve ever expected it to go.”
