On Opening Day at Steamboat Springs two decades ago, Liz Lemley spent the morning on the ski slope. Later that afternoon, the 9-month old learned to walk.

“The thing that is unique and really far and away different and responsible for her great success is starting out at a very, very early age,” her dad, Wayne Lemley, said in a phone call with the Vail Daily on Thursday. “We started at a little bit after birth — six months old.”

It’s fitting that after Liz Lemley won Olympic gold in the women’s individual mogul competition on Wednesday in Italy, the conversation Wayne had with his daughter centered around the athlete’s intentionally charted pathway.

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“It had been a 20-year effort,” he explained. “I’m sure she agrees.” 

A balancing act

Wayne Lemley admits neither he nor Liz Lemley’s biological mom passed off any world-class athletic genes to their daughter, who is the third American woman to win an Olympic mogul gold medal after Donna Weinbrecht (1992) and Hannah Kearney (2010). When he lived and worked on the East Coast, Wayne Lemley spent his weekends at Stratton Mountain and Killington, admiring “the best skiers” as they ripped through mogul courses. He took camps under 1992 Olympians Chuck Martin and Bobby Aldighier and even tried competing against teenagers as a 38-year-old. 

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“There’s kind of a feeling that if you have a big success at something like business, you can do anything,” Wayne Lemley said.

But he was wrong.

“That made me realize, when I have my own kids, they have to start young,” he continued, “because that was, in my view, the reason I was never any good.”

Lemley said he and his two children would ski around 90 minutes a day, four times a week, even as youngsters. They also did gymnastics, went hiking and enjoyed water sports like swimming and sailing. He filled their lives with “balance moments.” Instead of carefully lifting young Liz into her high chair for meals, Wayne would place her in goofy positions she’d have to straighten herself out of.

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“She loved it,” he commented.

Lemley learned to bike at age 2 1/2. Her dad said she “loved experimenting with balance” and didn’t mind entering freestyle competitions at 6 with girls who were twice her age. She even embraced her crashes, he said.

“Most parents are afraid to let their kids just go out and experience everything and crash — and it’s important to let them do that,” said Wayne Lemley, who wouldn’t physically lift his kids up if they wiped out on the hill as toddlers.

“I would go up to them, but I would just talk to them about what happened. ‘What did you see when you crashed?” he continued. “And that’s unusual and there’s a small number of other adults who, they might even say that’s cruel. But I don’t think Elizabeth would say that.”

Lemley’s older brother, Andrew, who is about two years older, competed in sailboat racing, biking and skiing alongside Liz. Wayne Lemley said he had “tremendous air and gymnastic ability” and was “incredible in the water ramp.”

“But when she got as good as him, he kind of developed a bit of a jealousy,” he said of Andrew, who eventually embraced aviation and has now become — like his dad — a pilot.

Even before she made her World Cup debut at 15, won World Junior medals and a pair of Youth Olympic Games golds, Lemley was ahead of the curve.

“Compared to other girls of her same age who competed in freestyle mogul skiing, she was just always ahead, always relaxed, always enjoying it, not struggling with it,” Wayne Lemley said. “And I think John Dowling would agree.”

Dowling, who first saw Lemley when the then 7-year-old arrived at a spring camp in Vail, said he’s thought for awhile that his pupil could be an Olympic champion.

“I mean, we always had a belief she had it in her to be the very best,” he said on Wednesday night. “I’ve believed for awhile that she’s the best skier and the best jumper. Maybe not always the fastest. She’s a great competitor, she’s a game day girl. I think today kind of proved that.”

Dowling took a sabbatical of sorts from his position as SSCV’s mogul program director to coach Lemley privately at the beginning of the 2024-25 season. But Lemley tore her ACL in a practice run prior to the World Cup opener in Ruka, Finland.

“We got back from Ruka a little over a year ago and Liz was headed into surgery and then we were starting to get into the gym,” Dowling said. “Trying to get her back into just being an athlete. At first, at that point, she wasn’t able to use her legs, so we were doing upper body workouts.”

During the comeback, Dowling said Liz switched up her aerial package.

“When we entered the season last year, we thought she was the strongest skier, strongest jumper — everything — at that time,” Dowling said. “And then we were just trying to get back to basics.” 

Getting back to “the basics” throughout the rehabilitation process helped Lemley sharpen her “technical side,” Dowling said. After the first World Cup event in Ruka this past December — where Lemley finished fourth — she came back and practiced jumping into the foam at Woodward.

“We weren’t able to do a full water ramp season like most people do,” Dowling said.

After a seventh-place result on the first day of the Val St. Come World Cup, Lemley took second the following day in duals. She posted the second-best mark in the Olympic qualifier on Tuesday. Dowling said she was perfectly positioned going into the super final as the fourth-best seed.

“She had kind of wanted to be in that top spot (after final 1), but I had kind of hoped she was a little bit further down,” Dowling said.

“After the (qualification) we were a little worried the judges were going to just be handing it to Jakara (Anthony), but Liz was really close after that qualification run so we knew she was in the hunt.”

Lemley unleashed an 82.30 score on her last run of the day.

“And then people had to respond,” Dowling said. “And that kind of put the game in her hands.”

Meanwhile, back at the SSCV clubhouse, program director Freddy Mooney had just returned from picking up Burger King breakfast sandwiches when he fired up the espresso machine, pulled up the finals on the Canadian Broadcast Co. website and watched the replay with 15-20 other current mogul athletes. His own former World Cup athlete, Canadian Phil Marquis was on the call. Ironically, it was through Marquis that Mooney was introduced to Liz for the first time.

“Phil showed up at the first World Cup that Liz ever qualified for and he’s like ‘you’ve got to watch this girl, she’s going to be really good.’ And, Phil was right,” Mooney said before adding that Marquis — who also coached at SSCV — showed his bias on the broadcast.

“You could hear the pride in Phil’s voice, mentioning how he worked with her before she made the U.S. ski team,” Mooney continued. “Even the Canadians were proud of Liz.”

The club has both influenced Lemley’s development and been uniquely touched by the family’s generosity. Mooney said Wayne Lemley might be “the largest single donor to mogul skiing in the United States.”

Five years ago, Wayne Lemley put $1 million down to build the mogul course on Golden Peak. He’s donated at least that amount to both SSCV and the U.S. Ski Team and also footed most of the bill for the American women team’s World Cup travel, coaches and more. Still, whenever Liz Lemley shows up at the club, Mooney said she exudes a humble work ethic.

“She’s an amazing role model. Her work ethic speaks volumes and she talks with her skiing and hard work way more than what actually comes out of her mouth,” he said. “She shows up and then days like today — she shows out. … She’s really an example of what we’d hope all athletes would aspire to be.”

Wayne Lemley said he wouldn’t mind if other Vail area families follow in her footsteps, too.

“It’s certainly not something that all families or even a majority of families would take interest in, but there’s probably a small number of families each year with toddlers that are born who might, you know, want to do this,” he said. “And I believe if there’s 20 a year or 20 every few years, that half of those would become Olympic successes.”

As a single parent, he said he didn’t experience any resistance in his approach.

“I was free to try those things,” he said. “And some people criticize me that you know, this is a science experiment for you, raising kids. And you know, to an extent I guess it was a bit of an experimental thing, but I think that the success shows that it works very well.”

Wayne Lemley said he didn’t explicitly steer either of his kids to mogul skiing specifically.

“My goals as a single parent were for the kids to have the greatest athletic opportunity, and my belief — which I think now is born out — is that in those very early months, up to 3 years old, that’s when the nervous system and muscles and everything are most developing,” he said. “And if you wait, others have said this to me, but if you wait until 2 and maybe 3 years old to really start working on balance and athletics, people have said it’s too late. And I firmly believe that.” 

Did Liz ever push back?

“I think she’s always loved it,” Wayne Lemley said. “Up to maybe 3 years old, she would just cry and cry and cry. But to me that didn’t mean she was pushing back — it meant that she was learning new things.”

After winning her medal, Liz Lemley said, “at the end of the day, I love skiing.”

So, will she try to defend her gold medal four years from now?

Dad said her daughter has considered everything from retiring after the Olympics to finishing the World Cup season to competing next year while studying at Oberlin (his alma mater)— either part-time or half-time. He plans to wait until after Saturday’s dual competition to have a conversation.

“She’s made the ultimate athletic accomplishment and she does have great aptitude as a student,” he said. “Obviously she’s 20 and it’s her decision.”

Lemley and fellow SSCV alumna Tess Johnson will contest the dual moguls starting at 2:30 a.m. MST on Valentine’s Day. At the last World Cup dual moguls event, the U.S. went 1-2-3-4.

“That group of four girls is a force to be reckoned with,” Mooney said. “There will be a little bit of the luck of the draw — we hope we don’t see too much friendly fire in the early rounds.”

As he drove through Minturn on Wednesday, Mooney said he couldn’t wait for Lemley to come home and celebrate with rest of the club.

“Just so stoked for Liz. She worked really hard and you know, everybody loves a comeback story,” Mooney said. “But the reason everyone loves a comeback story is because rarely does it work out that way. … You couldn’t write it up any better for her.”