A 17-year-old skier will join his 46-year-old mother on Mexico’s tiny Winter Olympic team in Italy next month, the first such mother-son combo in Mexican history.
Alpine skier Lasse Gaxiola, 17, has been named Mexico’s fifth athlete for the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, where he will compete in the same sport as his mother, veteran Olympian Sarah Schleper.
The Winter Games are scheduled for Feb. 6–22 in northern Italy.
Schleper, 46, is set for her seventh Olympic appearance, extending a career that began in 1998 when she raced for the United States before later switching allegiances and coming out of retirement after marrying Mexican coach Federico Gaxiola.
Their son, Lasse, secured his Olympic berth through the International Ski Federation rankings after a series of junior and FIS-level races around the globe. He has also competed in age-group races in Europe.
His qualification completes a five‑member Mexican delegation that will compete in Italy. Alongside Schleper and Gaxiola (who split time between Mexico City and ski resorts in Europe and elsewhere), the team includes alpine skiers Regina Martínez and Allan Corona and figure skater Donovan Carrillo.
In 2022, Mexico sent a team of four athletes to the Winter Olympics in Beijing, China.
Schleper’s path to this moment stretches back decades.
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The native of Vail, Colorado, competed for the U.S. in four Winter Olympics: 1998 in Nagano, Japan; 2002 in Salt Lake City, U.S.; 2006 in Turin, Italy; and 2010 in Vancouver, Canada.
Then, after obtaining Mexican citizenship in 2015, she competed for Mexico in 2018 in PyeongChang, South Korea, and in 2022 in Beijing.
Her seventh appearance will be one short of the record eight held by Japanese ski jumper Noriaki Kasai and German speed skater Claudia Pechstein.
Her best finish was 10th place in the women’s slalom in 2006, which came one year after her lone World Cup victory, at a slalom event in Switzerland.
Eight years ago, she told Vice.com she was “extremely proud of being Mexican — extremely proud of what I’ve done to get here.”
In that interview, she was also asked if her own kids — Lasse wasn’t even 10 years old at that point — would someday ski for Mexico.
“Sometimes Lasse trains with us in the summer,” she replied. “He doesn’t want to be a racer, but he’s a great skier. I’m pretty sure he’d compete for Mexico, though. It’s a long way away, but there’s an opportunity there.”
In Milan-Cortina, Sarah and Lasse will join Venezuelan lugers Werner Hoeger and his son Christopher (Salt Lake City 2002) as the only parent-child combo competing for the same country in the same event at the same Winter Olympics.
A parent-child combo has occurred several times in the Summer Games, but only one time as a mother-son combo: pistol shooters Nino Salukvadze and her son Tsotne Machavariani at the Rio Games in 2016.
With reports from Latinus, TUDN and the Mexican Olympic Committee
