Silver Medalist Ben Ogden Is a Product of Vermont’s Wild Backwoods

Ben Ogden is probably the only cross-country skier in Olympic history to backflip off the winner’s podium. On February 10, after notching a silver in the men’s classic sprint, Ogden–six feet tall and lanky, with a bushy mustache–broke the solemnity of the medals ceremony. He handed his silver to the somewhat bewildered gold medal winner, Johannes Klaebo of Norway, and then hurtled himself skyward so forcefully that his white knit hat flew from his head.

The flip didn’t square, certainly, with cross-country’s reputation as a quiet and meditative pursuit. But in the community where Ogden grew up, in southern Vermont, Nordic skiers are gnarly. They are badass. They are daredevils.

For proof—and for a drill-down on Ogden’s cultural DNA—I need only transport you to the backyard of southern Vermont Nordic skiing legend, Bill Koch. Now 70, Koch is the only other American cross-country skier to medal in the Olympics—he won a silver in 1976. And two decades ago, when his son was small, Koch turned his yard into a vicious terrain park that could only be navigated on skinny skis.

“It started about ten feet off the ground,” Koch told Outside. “On a platform in an oak tree and then it came down a ramp. So it was skill-oriented right from the get-go. Like, you didn’t go up there unless you were feeling pretty good.”

Ski Skills Forged in an Epic Backyard

Ogden, 26, grew up four miles north of the Kochs in Landgrove, Vermont, population 175. He was a regular at the Koch terrain park. For years, he sessioned there for five hours at a stretch, completing up to 40 consecutive laps at a time, usually with his two sisters. When he was around ten years old, the place must have seemed monumental.

As Koch described the course, “After the ramp, you went down a slope, so you had a pretty good head of steam going when you hit the first kicker. You could fly like 35 or 40 feet in the air.”

Ogden told Outside he remembers the course well. “There was a big roller jump down at the bottom, and then you went into the woods, where there was a little drop-off jump down into this, like, ravine,” he said.

What was Koch thinking, endangering children like this? Was he twisted?

Not all. There was, as Ogden remembers it, caring and wisdom in the way Koch shaped the park, with “downhill landings covered in soft snow.” There was also an agenda at play.

Koch has always believed that skiers learn best—and develop agility—when they’re horsing around and “finding their body in every possible position and needing to deal with that in a fast way.” In a cult classic 1976 film, The Bill Koch Experience, the star slaloms at perilous speed through low brush, dodges cows in a pasture, and also leaps off a boulder, only to tumble. In chill, laidback tones, he asserts, “Sometimes I liked to go on a prepared course and do some hardcore skiing. Other times I like to just take off in the woods anywhere, go for a tour.”

Koch’s playful approach yielded him a medal. Then, it helped shape new ski phenoms. At least three Koch backyard regulars have gone on to the big leagues of Nordic racing. Koch’s son–Will, age 24–has skied on the World Cup circuit. Ben Ogden’s older sister, Katharine, was a three-time NCAA champion at Dartmouth before skiing in the World Cup from 2019 to 2022.

“Thanks to those sessions at Bill’s, and to all the time I spent going off jumps and landing wobbly, I’m good on my skis,” Ogden told Outside. “I’m comfortable in different conditions and in tight corners. That skill set definitely helped at the Olympics when it was warm and slushy, and the snow got worse with each heat of sprints.”

Learning to Get Gnarly from a Vermont Legend

But Koch wasn’t Ogden’s only rebel influence. In adolescence, Ogden found a new, more outre guiding star. Andy Newell, now 42 and retired, was arguably America’s best male cross-country sprinter of his era. A four-time Olympian and a native of Shaftsbury, Vermont, 30 miles southwest of Landgrove. Newell moonlighted as a pioneer of skinny ski stunt jumping. He did humongous back flips and dicy 720s.

Ogden consumed Newell’s videos like candy. It was as though he’d traded the Beatles for the darker, more sinister grooves of the Rolling Stones. “Bill’s house,” he says, “was controlled chaos. Andy bridged into the territory of danger.”

Ogden traced his daredevil ways, in part, back to Newell. “There was this long period where really all I cared about was going off jumps on my cross-country skis,” he said. “The first time I did a 360, it was on Andy’s inspiration. Andy was the reason I first learned how to do a backflip on my Nordic skis. We never did that at Bill’s house. But we’d go home and build jumps over the road.”

Ogden likely won’t be doing any flips on skis in the coming days. He has more Olympic races to tap. On February 15, he will likely anchor the U.S. team in the men’s 30-kilometer freestyle relay, and on February 18, he will compete in the men’s team sprint, which sees two skiers for each squad alternating as they ski a total of three laps around a 1.5 kilometer course.

Then, on the Games’ last day, February 22, there’s the 50-kilometer marathon. Slogs like that don’t play well to Ogden’s fast-twitch strengths, but still, he’s eyeing the contest with a Koch-inflected flexibility. “I mean, it’s the Olympic 50K,” Ogden said. “You don’t get to do too many of those, so I think I’ll probably go for it.”

And if he doesn’t medal? Well, then, he’ll just be that much fresher for a season-ending contest that is more his jam. On April 4, Ogden will take part in the frolicsome, 100 percent amateur Nordic X race at the tiny Cochran’s Ski Area in Vermont. “You start at the top of a small alpine ski slope,” he said, “and then there’s slalom, rollers, jumps, bumps, uphills, downhill, pits, and hay bales to jump over.” The course usually takes around ten minutes to complete. .

“I’m a four-time champion at Cochan’s,” Ogden said. “I’ll be looking to defend my title this year. And my strategy is, I’ll relax. I crashed one year and broke a binding. So this time, I won’t be afraid to snow plow. I’m a man who doesn’t like to snow plow in races, after all my years at the Kochs. But there are certain races you have to snowplow in, and Cochran’s Nordic X is one of them. I’ve learned that the hard way.”