She replays Holt’s “slow and steady” comment over in her head, takes a deep breath, and keeps moving. Two broken poles weren’t enough to stop her from finishing. That’s how Holt knew Storey wouldn’t give up now. “I watched that, and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I want her.’” “She stayed with her and passed her back,” she says. Holt watched her race at Soldier Hollow, and when Parker Tyler, who formerly competed for the U, passed Storey on the course, Holt recalls a “look in Sloan’s eyes like, ‘Uh-uh.’” When the coach first saw Storey compete a year previously, as a senior in high school, she knew she wanted the skier for the U’s team. That certainly wasn’t on Holt’s mind, though.

‘“I bet my coaches are wondering why they recruited this 18-year-old,” she thinks. She can no longer see any of the other 25 racers on the course. “You’re still in it - slow and steady,” Holt shouts as she passes by. Nordic head coach Abi Holt is 300 yards away uphill - a distance Storey only defines as “enough time to lose everything.” Even so, she makes an unbalanced drive at her coach to grab another new pole. She rounds her first bend, and the impending panic still looms when it happens again. “OK, OK, I’ve got this,” she repeats to calm her growing nerves as she falls farther behind the pack. The freshman skier has never broken a pole before and now, during her first collegiate competition, is not ideal. Her coach, standing in the snow on the sidelines, reacts almost instantaneously and hands her a replacement. But Sloan Storey doesn’t get far before her mantra seems more like a jinx: five feet into the 15-kilometer cross country race, the Nordic skier hears a sharp snap - she’s broken a pole. The calm Colorado morning is broken by the sound of a gun, and she’s off. “Just don’t get last,” she mutters, her breath turning into white swirls in the near 0-degree weather. Sloan Storey, Utah Nordic SKI team Thursday Januin Salt Lake City, UT.

Breathe by Sloan Parker