Marco Sullivan is an alpine skiing athlete competing at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Marco Sullivan grew up in Tahoe City, California, less than 10 miles from the Alpine venue used for the 1960 Squaw Valley Games. Living in an environment where "people love the snow, and skiing and snowboarding are number one," the choice to focus on skiing came easily. In his early teens, he started lighting up the local racing circuit, and by 18, he was on the U.S. Ski Team. He made the U.S. Olympic team for the 2002 Salt Lake Games, where he finished a surprise ninth in the downhill.
The speed specialist, dubbed "the Natural" in the March 2008 issue of Men's Journal, has a fan club, organized and run by his sister Chelsea. When he competed at Beaver Creek in 2008, a group of more than 50 supporters came to the hill, most decked out in leprechaun green, pompom tams that she had ordered. "Marco Rocks" banners and signs lined the finish area, as well.
When Sullivan won his first—and thus far, only—World Cup event in Chamonix in January 2008, the first telephone call he made was to U.S. teammate Scott Macartney, who had been severely injured in a crash in Kitzbuehel one week earlier. Sullivan has avoided severe crashes in his career, but he has made numerous trips to the operating table to fix knee ligament injuries. He also deals with a condition called immotile cilia syndrome, where the lungs are ill-equipped to filter out foreign particles and mucous.
In 2007 and 2008, Sullivan competed in the Arctic Man Ski and Sno-Go Classic, a competition held each April in rural Alaska that involves skiing down a mountain without poles, grabbing a towrope connected to a snowmobile, being pulled up a second mountain, and finally skiing solo down the second mountain. Speeds exceed 90 mph, or about the same as the famed Hahnenkahm downhill at Kitzbuehel. In 2007, he finished as the runner-up to Macartney, and the following year he ended Macartney's two-year reign as champion. "Arctic Man itself is the giant party. Ten thousand people come into this old parking lot with their RV's, and there are bonfires and people going crazy. It's a good time with a little bit of racing thrown in the middle."
Like many skiers, Sullivan uses mountain biking as part of his off-season training regimen. Before 2008, he biked mostly for cardiovascular training. Then, he got a pass at the ski resort near his home, North Star, and added the downhill-only component, partly for speed training and partly because he needed something new to scare him. "I can ride the lift up and then bomb down. I got into that, and found that it was a cool form of cross-training. I get high speeds going, so I have to keep focused and alert."
Sullivan played linebacker and tight end as a four-year starter at North Tahoe High School football team. He was the Lakers' team co-captain for his senior year. Despite putting away his pads, he remains a dedicated San Francisco 49ers fan. On tour, he always travels with a Scrabble board and claims to be the "Guitar Hero" champion on the team.
Marco Sullivan grew up in Tahoe City, California, less than 10 miles from the Alpine venue used for the 1960 Squaw Valley Games. Living in an environment where "people love the snow, and skiing and snowboarding are number one," the choice to focus on skiing came easily. In his early teens, he started lighting up the local racing circuit, and by 18, he was on the U.S. Ski Team. He made the U.S. Olympic team for the 2002 Salt Lake Games, where he finished a surprise ninth in the downhill.
The speed specialist, dubbed "the Natural" in the March 2008 issue of Men's Journal, has a fan club, organized and run by his sister Chelsea. When he competed at Beaver Creek in 2008, a group of more than 50 supporters came to the hill, most decked out in leprechaun green, pompom tams that she had ordered. "Marco Rocks" banners and signs lined the finish area, as well.
When Sullivan won his first—and thus far, only—World Cup event in Chamonix in January 2008, the first telephone call he made was to U.S. teammate Scott Macartney, who had been severely injured in a crash in Kitzbuehel one week earlier. Sullivan has avoided severe crashes in his career, but he has made numerous trips to the operating table to fix knee ligament injuries. He also deals with a condition called immotile cilia syndrome, where the lungs are ill-equipped to filter out foreign particles and mucous.
In 2007 and 2008, Sullivan competed in the Arctic Man Ski and Sno-Go Classic, a competition held each April in rural Alaska that involves skiing down a mountain without poles, grabbing a towrope connected to a snowmobile, being pulled up a second mountain, and finally skiing solo down the second mountain. Speeds exceed 90 mph, or about the same as the famed Hahnenkahm downhill at Kitzbuehel. In 2007, he finished as the runner-up to Macartney, and the following year he ended Macartney's two-year reign as champion. "Arctic Man itself is the giant party. Ten thousand people come into this old parking lot with their RV's, and there are bonfires and people going crazy. It's a good time with a little bit of racing thrown in the middle."
Like many skiers, Sullivan uses mountain biking as part of his off-season training regimen. Before 2008, he biked mostly for cardiovascular training. Then, he got a pass at the ski resort near his home, North Star, and added the downhill-only component, partly for speed training and partly because he needed something new to scare him. "I can ride the lift up and then bomb down. I got into that, and found that it was a cool form of cross-training. I get high speeds going, so I have to keep focused and alert."
Sullivan played linebacker and tight end as a four-year starter at North Tahoe High School football team. He was the Lakers' team co-captain for his senior year. Despite putting away his pads, he remains a dedicated San Francisco 49ers fan. On tour, he always travels with a Scrabble board and claims to be the "Guitar Hero" champion on the team.
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