The 'once-in-a-generation' Sammy Smith, the soccer player skiing at the Olympics

Tom Weber

• Updated: 7 Feb 2026 11:41 CST
• 9 min read

News

Just weeks after playing for Stanford University in the NCAA women’s soccer championship match, Samantha Smith is skiing at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

The 20-year-old has reached a first major milestone in her nascent but already remarkable career. Smith is part of Team USA's cross-country skiing roster at Milano Cortina 2026, having established herself as one of America's most promising athletes.

It is not unusual for children and teenagers to play multiple sports, but they usually specialise in one when they reach adulthood. USMNT midfielder Tanner Tessmann, for example, opted to pursue his professional soccer career over American football.

Not Smith, however. Despite her impressive exploits in skiing, she remains a fully committed soccer player for Stanford University. In fact, just a few weeks ago, the sophomore was playing for the Cardinals against Florida State in their 1-0 loss in the NCAA women’s soccer championship match.

The Boise, Idaho, native is fittingly described as a "once-in-a-generation athlete" by the official U.S. Ski & Snowboard website, and her accolades at the tender age of 20 are nothing short of astounding.

How Smith juggles skiing and soccer

From a young age, Smith showed remarkable sporting versatility, excelling in numerous activities, ranging from soccer and tackle football to running and, of course, winter sports.

Her family fostered this love of sports. Both her mother, Kristen, and her older sister, Logan, are Stanford alumnae. Like Sammy, Logan played soccer for the Cardinals.

In 2022, Smith was part of the USWNT at the U17 World Cup in India. Nigeria caused a major upset when they knocked the US out on penalties in the quarter-final on their way to an impressive third-place finish.

The following year, Smith won bronze at the Pan American Games in Chile with the U23 national team after beating Argentina 2-0. It was also at this time that she began making waves as a skier.

Just a few months after playing in the U17 World Cup, Smith competed at the Cross-Country World Cup in Norway. In 2024, she claimed silver at the World Junior Championships in Slovenia. Her path to the 2026 Olympics began after the NCAA championship loss with Stanford on 8 December.

After the game, "Smith flew to Anchorage, Alaska, placed second and fourth in two races, then schlepped to Lake Placid, New York, and won two national 1.5km sprint titles," the official Stanford website writes.

This was "enough for the US team to put her on a plane to Germany, where she made the semifinals of another sprint and beat the most acclaimed female US cross-country skier of all time, Jessie Diggins, in their quarterfinal."

As a result, Smith was included in the Olympic roster, where she is now a teammate of Diggins, who finished eighth at today's cross-country skiing event at Milano Cortina.

If performing at an elite level in two vastly different sports simultaneously wasn't impressive enough, Smith is, of course, still in college and studying for an environmental systems engineering degree. She also runs a non-profit organisation, GO BIG Inc., with her sisters for underprivileged youth.

So, how does she do it? “Efficiency is a huge part of my life,” she told the Stanford website. “I block all my classes really tightly together to give myself bigger windows for a concrete training block or a concrete study block.

"Because if you have 40 minutes between class, you can’t really do that much homework, or you’ll just look at your phone. I also set a lot of time limits. I try to be really committed to getting my stuff done and not get distracted.

"It’s hard, and you’re gonna make sacrifices. For me, what matters most is my love of sport and my love of school. So it hasn’t been hard for me to prioritise the two.”

Smith also believes that the difference between skiing and soccer isn't as big as people think. “For the most part, the strength training we do as a team is very, very translatable to skiing,” she explained. She also works out on her own in what little free time she has.

The 20-year-old is a generational talent in every sense of the word.

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