PARK CITY — It was less than a minute of his 19 years on this Earth, but Travis Mayer said one ski run in Steamboat Springs, Colo., changed his future completely.
"I qualified last, 12th," he said after winning a silver medal in the men's mogul competition in Deer Valley Tuesday. "I was pumped. I rode up on the chairlift with my coach . . . he just let me know that I was a contender and not just someone filling a spot in the finals."
Mayer decided his coach was right. What he didn't know was how much one success would change his life.
"I was so frustrated with how things were going," he said, "that I threw caution to the wind. Everything changed in 25 seconds. It was a huge commitment, a reckless toss of the dice."
It was a decision that catapulted him from obscurity to the Olympic podium as he finished second to Finland's legendary Janne Lahtela, who rebounded from a torn ACL last season to win the only honor he didn't already own — an Olympic gold medal. France's Richard Gay finished third in his first Olympic appearance.
"I felt good at the starting gate and really good at the end," he said. "But I don't remember much about my run."
Lahtela was the fastest skier down the Champion course, one of the longest and steepest in the world. He led one of the strongest teams in the competition and was one of just three men to appear for his fourth consecutive Olympics in freestyle. He said he's struggled with knee pain for most of the season, but it recently seemed to improve.
Lahtela, who won the silver medal in Nagano, said the gold Tuesday was more appreciated because of the wait.
"I don't think I was mentally prepared to win gold in Nagano," he said. "I've put in a lot of hard work for this."
He said he knew Mayer would be tough to beat when he heard the New York native had won the American Gold Cup, which automatically qualified him for the Olympic team.
Mayer actually finished first in the qualifying round, and that made him the last skier in the finals.
He said the huge grin he let loose as he stood in the starting gate was him basking in the glow of a dream come true.
"I thought, 'There's no place on earth I'd rather be,' " he said. "I saw (Olympic moguls) on television in 1992, when I was 9 years old, and that's when I started really, really dreaming and working."
He moved from Springville, N.Y., to Steamboat Springs, Colo., to train for the U.S. Ski Team. Both he and his family say he's always possessed the skills, but it was his run in Steamboat Springs and winning the Gold Cup that gave him the confidence.
"I've seen him ski this good," said his mother, Lynn Mayer, "because I've been watching him all of his life. It's just been hard for him to put it down when it counts . . . I'm just so happy for him. He's worked so hard. It's sort of surreal."
Gay was in first place Tuesday when Lahtela laid down a scorching run that moved him into first. Mayer then skied almost as fast but opted for a slightly easier trick on the bottom jump because he had an off-balance take-off. It was good enough for silver and good enough for Mayer.
"Regardless of what happened, I would have been happy," Mayer said.
The freshman at Cornell was virtually unknown not just because he's not on the World Cup Tour but because he skis with men who attract a significant amount of media attention. At press conferences, Mayer usually watched as Jonny Moseley, the defending gold medalist, Jeremy Bloom, who deferred a football scholarship to focus on skiing, and Evan Dybvig, who's overcome injuries to both his knees and has the only child on the team, talked.
"I was the extra," he said of the interested that surrounded the moguls team. "I came in without the pressure or press and was able to just ski."
And just what he's accomplished still hasn't hit him.
"I don't really know what to say," he said. "I didn't really expect this to happen. I'm enjoying my Olympic experience so far."
Jeremy Bloom finished ninth and Jonny Moseley finished fourth. Evan Dybvig didn't make the final round after he fell during his qualifying run on the landing of his second jump.
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