When is it time to target the Winter Olympics as a realistic goal? Camden Lewis, 15, a high school freshman, thinks it’s not too soon to start aiming for 2030.
Camden, son of Kimberlie Sweet and Jamie Lewis, has built a foundation for that goal. In April, he was invited to join the U.S. team in the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships in Valmalenco, Italy.
The Olympics, he said in a recent interview, “has been my dream since I started skiing.”
In six years, he said, “I expect to be at my prime.”
Camden doesn’t remember when he began to ski – he was too young.
“My dad got me to ski when I was one-and-a-half years old,” he said, adding that his first actual memory on skis was age four. And his first competition in his specialty, mogul skiing, was just two years later.
“When I was younger, my dad tried to get me to be a racer. But I would never listen to the coaches.”
He recalled one race where he was off in the woods while everybody else waited at the starting line.
“The race official told me dad: ‘Sorry, that kid is not a racer. He’s a freestyler.’”
“Mogul skiing is a freestyle competition consisting of one timed run of free skiing on a steep, heavily moguled course, stressing technical turns, aerial maneuvers, and speed,” according to the FIS, which is the sports’ highest international governing body. The term “mogul” is from a Germanic word for “mound” or “hillock.”
“I was never into racing because it was so boring – everybody doing the same gates,” Camden said. “Mogul is a very dangerous sport that requires a lot of drive. It’s difficult and risky and if you don’t keep training, you lose it.”
He said, “In mogul skiing, you have to be disciplined and you have to learn what it takes to ski the bumps right.”
He described a typical course of 250 meters: “A set trail with a top section of 7 to 10 bumps, and an air jump, then another 20 yards to the giant mogul section, 25-30 bumps, and then you have another jump, and then a bottom section.”
It’s a complicated scoring system with points on turns and degree of jump difficulty and “pace time,” which must be balanced with the quality of turns, he explained.
“If you try to speed up too much you make more mistakes. You have to keep your mental state,” he said.
For the past three years, Camden has split his school time between Bedford and Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine. Last fall, after the academic first quarter at Bedford High, he moved to Maine for the competitive season, arriving back for the fourth quarter.
Moving to Gould “isn’t stressful at all. They understand that everybody is trying to develop their skiing. When I come back, it’s quite a bit harder because I need to catch up a lot and study for finals.” He still has time to play catcher on the junior varsity baseball team.
Camden was surprised he qualified for the five-man national team (technically he moved up from first alternate) because he missed some competitions recovering from a thumb injury. But he came back strong for Gould, winning several meets. He was named most valuable player of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Eastern Division.
The two-and-a-half-week experience in Italy was completely new.
“I was competing against the top 20-and-under kids from 16 countries. I crashed in a practice run but did well in the competition.”
He noted that “one of the best parts of being at this level is you make great connections all over the world.”
And the day he returned to the U.S., Camden flew to Utah and won his first FIS contest.
“I love the challenge, but also the community is absolutely amazing,” he said about his sport. “All the teams support each other,” even providing assistance and advice at competitions.
Indeed, over his decade on skis, “everybody helps you – the coaches, the athletes who push you to get stronger. It’s not a solo sport. If I don’t win, they will still be there cheering me on and working to improve.”
Camden’s goal for the coming season is to qualify for the FIS Freestyle Moguls World Cup, which he called “the best of the best” and a pathway to a berth in the Olympics.
“Moguls are made in the summer because there is no off-season,” Camden said.
Besides running and working with weights and “getting stronger and faster,” he plans to take part in training camp at Gould, working with ramps and trampolines to simulate jumps.
He also hopes to join his coach Sean Ennis and perhaps some teammates for two or three weeks skiing on glaciers in the Northwest or perhaps Norway.
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