The Macuga Sisters Are There For Each Other — In Ski Jumping, Alpine Skiing & Moguls

One morning last January, Alli Macuga woke up early because she had a flight to catch. She was flying East for World Cup moguls competitions in New Hampshire and Quebec. Once she was out of bed, Alli found her mother in a tizzy.

“I thought a cat had died or something,” quips Alli. But her mother had far better news to share.

“Your sister, she just won!” replied Mrs. Macuga. “Lauren just won a World Cup!”

Then hours ahead in St. Anton, Austria, Lauren, one of Alli’s older sisters, had just won a world cup super-G — her first World Cup victory. It was, in fact, her first-ever world cup podium finish. Alli and her mom watched Lauren’s run again on TV, then barely made it to the Salt Lake City airport from their home in Park City, Utah.

“The whole flight, I was like, ‘Lauren just won a world cup,’” remembers Alli. “It was crazy. I knew she could do it, but she actually did it!”

Alli and their oldest sister, Sam, were also there for Lauren when she had her worst day on the world cup tour. She tallied her first DNF — for did not finish — in a home world cup in Sun Valley, Idaho, last March.

“Alli [reminded me that it] happens, I can get out of it,” says Lauren. “And Sam was like, ‘No, we're going to look to the future, we're going to keep charging forward.’ One to the future and one reminding me that it's okay now, that balance was perfect.

“I just lucked out that I DNFed at home and had them there to carry me through it.”

The three Macuga sisters now stand on the cusp of qualifying for their first U.S. Olympic Team — Sam in ski jumping, Lauren in alpine skiing, Alli in moguls. Lauren shows so much promise that she was recently named to Team Stifel, an elite team within the Stifel U.S. Ski Team. Other members of Team Stifel include multiple Olympic medalists Mikaela Shiffrin and Jessie Diggins.

Here’s a glimpse at how Sam, Lauren, and Alli got to this point:

The Macugas moved to Park City when the girls were in elementary school, and they started participating in winter sports through the after-school Youth Sports Alliance, an initiative started after the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games to increase the number of kids participating in winter sports in the Park City area. With the 2002 Olympic facilities well maintained and still in use, thanks to the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation, kids can try just about every winter sport, from luge to figure skating.

The Macugas tried every sport on skis, and Sam — the eldest at age 24 — gravitated toward ski jumping. “I really like flying,” she says.

Lauren, 23, liked alpine skiing. “I really like going fast,” she says. And also, her best friend at the time, also named Lauren, was a ski racer.

Alli, 22, focused on moguls because the discipline “has all the aspects of most winter sports; you have the turns, the jumping, and the speed, which I love.”

The youngest, Daniel Macuga, 20, is an alpine skier still coming up the ranks.

The four siblings are naturally competitive — ask them about Mario Kart and beware playing cards against any of them. They can be ruthless with each other, but at the same time supportive.

“The competitive spirit is what got us here,” says Alli. “But we also really built each other up.”

“And we are lucky that we don't compete against each other,” adds Lauren.

“Yeah, beating each other in Mario Kart doesn’t get you to this stage,” quips Sam.

Sam was the first to make the Stifel U.S. Ski Team in 2017. She was 16 years old at the time and had just competed in the FIS Nordic Junior World Ski Championships, finishing eighth in the team normal hill ski jumping competition.

“I didn't even know there was a team to make,” says Lauren, who was 14 at the time.

By the time she was 16, Lauren was regularly finishing in the top-three at FIS-sanctioned regional races and then took second place at junior nationals in the super-G. In 2020, she too was named to the Stifel U.S. Ski Team.

Not to be left out, Alli made the Stifel U.S. Ski Team in 2022 after winning two bronze medals at junior world championships (in moguls and dual moguls), then becoming national champion in both moguls events. That same year, Lauren won a bronze medal in downhill at junior worlds. A year later, Alli became junior world champion in both moguls events and was named FIS Rookie of the Year.

Alli was the first to step onto a world cup podium — in December 2023. But both Sam and Lauren helped her get there. The previous week, Alli was upset that she had failed to qualify for the final rounds at a world cup. She talked to Lauren who reminded her, “you're doing what you love, go enjoy it.”

Later that same season, Alli finished on the World Cup podium again.

Summer 2024 was a turning point for the two younger Macuga sisters — for Lauren in a good way, for Alli, not so much.

During winter 2023-2024, Lauren began finishing consistently in the top 30, earning her first significant world cup points. Then, in two of the season’s final super-Gs, she finished fifth, then seventh. Stepping onto the world cup podium felt achievable.

She worked harder than ever that summer and started last season with the mindset of “I.Am.Going.To.Be.A.Ski.Racer.“ Period. It was her job as a ski racer to finish on the podium.

“That [mindset] made the change for me,” she says.

In her first world cup in December 2024 — a downhill at Beaver Creek, Colorado — Lauren finished fourth. Almost exactly a month later, she won the St. Anton World Cup super-G.

Then, three weeks after St. Anton, in her very first world championship race, Lauren won a bronze medal, the youngest skier to win a world champs medal in a speed event in 12 years. The sisters’ group chat lit up (though mostly with cat photos, they say; the Macugas have four cats).

But as Lauren soared, Sam and Alli were struggling.

During a summer training camp in July 2024, Alli accidentally slammed a ski pole into her face and ended up with post-concussion syndrome. Doctors told her that recovery could take a couple of weeks. Or many years. Weird symptoms cropped up — like when she started skiing again, she could not tell the jumps from the bumps.

“That's not super great [for a mogul skier],” she says wryly.

The previous winter, she had regularly made the finals at world cups. Last season, she finished far out of the top six. At times, she wanted to quit. Her sisters kept her looking toward the future.

Sam has also struggled recently. Since making the Stifel U.S. Ski Team in 2017, she had competed at two world championships and won a bronze medal at nationals in 2023. But this past summer at Grand Prix events in Europe, Sam’s jumping felt off. She was trying to help the U.S. qualify four female ski jumpers (instead of three) for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, and she was struggling with her results. She would finish a jumping competition, then find a place to cry.

“I can't do this, everybody's expecting me to get this spot for the team,’” she was thinking. “This is an unimaginable pressure.”

After Alli saw Sam’s results, she called her sister in Europe.

“It was really nice to have someone right there on the phone, be like, ‘I get it,’” says Sam.

Heading into the Olympic year, Lauren is a serious medal threat in super-G and downhill, and Alli is finally feeling more like herself, excited for world cup competition to start. Sam is eager to get her skis back under her again as well.

Ski jumping world cups begin the third week in November in Norway. The moguls world cup starts the first weekend in December in Finland, and the women’s alpine speed races kick off in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in mid-December. Olympic teams in each discipline will be named in mid-January. No matter what happens — if all three qualify for the 2026 Winter Games or only one — the Macuga sisters are there for each other.

“One of my favorite moments after races is on Sundays,” says Lauren. “We all compete on Sundays for the most part, and in the afternoon, we'll do a family group call. Everyone's just so excited, having so much fun, and you can just feel that family support. It's just amazing.”