Boise native makes U.S. Olympic ski team. She started training a month ago

BOSIE (Idaho Statesman) — Boise native Sammy Smith didn’t start training on skis until a month ago. But that hasn’t slowed the two-sport star, who made her first Olympic roster Thursday.

The 20-year-old will represent the U.S. women’s cross country ski team at next month’s Winter Olympics in Italy, U.S. Ski & Snowboard announced.

She is the youngest of eight women on the cross country team, which will compete in a variety of races Feb. 7 through Feb. 22.

The 2024 Boise High graduate gambled with her Olympic chances this year, skipping the fall World Cup calendar while serving as a starting defender on the Stanford women’s soccer team that reached the NCAA national title game.

Missing those international races meant she couldn’t earn the World Cup standings points needed for an automatic qualifying spot. But she impressed U.S. coaches in her limited time on skis by capturing a pair of national titles in Lake Placid, New York, earlier this month.

She then recorded her best World Cup finish (12th) and was the top American finisher at her first World Cup event of the season last weekend in Germany.

Smith was not immediately available for comment.

Smith heads to the Milan Cortina Games with a burgeoning cross country ski resume. She captured a silver medal at the FIS Ski Junior World Championships in 2024, the best-ever American finish in the event. She’s also captured three U.S. national titles, and she’s finished inside the top 30 at a World Cup event 20 times.

But she’s also an international-level soccer talent. She represented the U.S. at the U-17 women’s World Cup in 2022 while attending Boise High. She helped lead her country to a bronze medal at the 2023 Pan American Games as part of a U-19 American team competing against senior national squads. And she competed with the U-19 team again in 2024 on a trip to Spain.

Smith told the Idaho Statesman earlier this month she has no plans to pick one sport over the other anytime soon.

“The plan is to just keep doing (both) as long as I can do it,” Smith said, “and as long as I enjoy it.”