People have said Oh she can't be a real athlete, she’s a model
look at her or vice versa, she looks like an athlete she's got muscles,
she's a size 4 or size 6. She can’t be a model.
It’s taught me a lot about confidence, and it’s taught me a lot about forging my own path
and knowing that, you know, just because what I’m doing hasn’t been done before
doesn’t mean that it’s not true to me and that it’s not what I'm supposed to be doing
Hi I’m Sierra Quitiquit.
I’m a professional skier, model and athlete.
I grew up here, in beautiful Park City, Utah.
I first started skiing just before my second birthday and
I just remember being on these mountains and loving to be outside.
I had 3 brothers and a dad that was a World Cup Ski Racer and
we just skied. It’s kind of what we did as a family.
I did well in school and I enjoyed it, but I always just wanted to ski.
So I started traveling. I would work at whatever job I could get
and go down to South America and ski all summer, come back here get a job in
the mountains as a ski tech or teach skiing and I thought that one
day I would have to grow up and get a real job.
I had like the worst crash last week.
I did like the gnarliest scorpion I thought I broke my back. But um -
- When was this? - Last week, when I was catskiing.
I’ve ridden the chairlift with a couple of dudes who
are just spitting their game to me like how badass of a skier
they are and I’m like awesome.
They’re giving me some pointers and some tips and I’m just like cool,
that’s great and we’ll get to the bottom and they’re just like…
[gasps] It’s good keep getting...keep getting after it.
I’m a professional free skier. I’ve been lucky enough to ski all over the world.
My favorite place to ski is the back country.
It’s awesome to get up early before the sun rises and experience mother nature in the mountains.
I don’t think it’s any secret that there’s less female participants in sports
than male, and skiing is no exception. So it creates sort of a smaller atmosphere
or us female athletes. You’ve got to support women
in the sport that are going to encourage young women to want to grow up and be athletes.
When I get messages from young girls that say that I’ve inspired them and encouraged
them to follow their dreams, that means the world to me.
Well it was a pretty steep learning curve when I first started modeling
and skiing and I was trying to balance both.
For a long time I think I felt like an outsider as a model, but I’ve learned that just
because the rest of the girls don’t look like me or act like me
doesn’t mean that I can’t honor myself and forge my own path.
-Hi!
-I’m gonna finish up the ski season here, and then I’m gonna
go to New York and model for the summer.
-I love it! Are you gonna live out there all summer?
-Yeah, I’m gonna live out there all summer and I’m gonna just give it a good go.
It’s taught me to be true to myself, and be proud of who I am
and where I come from, and my muscles and that I’m strong
...and, it’s been good!
Yoga is super important because not only does it physically align you,
I firmly believe that it spiritually, mentally,
emotionally aligns you as well.
I think people look at me and they see what they want to see.
I never want to assign myself to the limitations of the idea that a model
can’t be an athlete or that an athlete can’t be also be intelligent.
I think one of the great challenges in life is to not let
anyone put you in a box, to be indescribable,
and to be fluid and constantly adaptable.
I could give anybody any advice it would be to live outside the box.
Skiing keeps me on my toes and ski keeps me working hard to
be the best athlete I can be, and that’s cool cause there’s always something on the horizon.