Tommy Moe

Born in Missoula, Montana, Moe learned to ski and race at The Big Mountain near Whitefish, where his father was a member of the ski patrol. Moe refined his skills as a teenager in Alaska at Alyeska, near Anchorage, where he attended the Glacier Creek Ski Academy. He joined the U.S. Ski Team in 1986 at age 16.[1]

Moe made his World Cup debut at 17[2] and days before he turned 19, competed at the 1989 World Championships in Vail, Colorado, where he placed 12th in the downhill competition. He earned his first World Cup points (top 15) in March 1990 with a 13th-place finish at Åre, Sweden, the 1990 season's final race.[3]

In a surprising performance in 1994 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer, Norway, Moe became the first American male ski racer to win two medals in a single Winter Olympics, with a gold in the downhill and silver in the super-G at Kvitfjell.[4] At the time Moe was a resident of Alaska; after his Olympic victories his father was shown on television waving the Alaska state flag.[5][6][7]

Of Norwegian ancestry, he quickly became a favorite with the crowd at Kvitfjell, despite edging out Kjetil André Aamodt of Norway by 0.04 seconds to take the gold medal in the downhill.[7] He then placed second in the super-G on his 24th birthday, finishing 0.09 seconds behind Markus Wasmeier of Germany.[4] His success came despite not having yet won a World Cup race, though he had attained three podiums and had raced well the previous twelve months, starting with a fifth place in the downhill at the 1993 World Championships in Japan.[8] (He won a month after the Olympics, a super-G at Whistler, Canada,[9][10] his sole World Cup victory).

Moe's best World Cup season was also in 1994, where he finished third in the super-G and eighth in both the downhill and overall standings. (Since 1971, the World Cup standings have not included the Winter Olympics or World Championships results.)

In March 1995, Moe suffered a right knee injury at Kvitfjell, on the same race course on which he won his Olympic medals thirteen months earlier.[11][12] Following his recovery, he never regained his top form,[13][14] and missed the World Championships in 1997 after a fluke thumb injury in late January required surgery.[14][15][16] He returned in March and won the downhill at the U.S. Alpine Championships in Maine.[17] Moe made his third U.S. Olympic team in 1998 at Nagano,[14] and finished eighth in the super-G and twelfth in the downhill at Hakuba. He retired from competitive ski racing that June at age 28.[18]

• 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway: two medals
  • Gold medal in Downhill
  • Silver medal in Super G (on his 24th birthday)
• Five (5) U.S. Alpine Championship titles
• One (1) World Cup victory (1994, Super G at Whistler)
• Inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame in 2003

• The Super-G in 1993 was cancelled after multiple weather delays.

Moe and was inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame five years later, and is currently a co-owner of Tordrillo Mountain Lodge in the Alaska Range and lives in Wilson, Wyoming. He serves as an ambassador of skiing at nearby Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

Moe married longtime girlfriend Megan Gerety in 2003; they have two daughters and reside in western Wyoming.

• Tommy Moe at the International Ski Federation
• Tommy Moe World Cup standings at the International Ski Federation
• Tommy Moe at Ski-DB Alpine Ski Database
• Tommy Moe at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
• U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame – Tommy Moe
• Jackson Hole.com – Tommy Moe
• Tordrillo Mountain Lodge – Tommy Moe
• Classic Mountain Zone.com – Tommy Moe – 1998 retirement