One of Prior Lake’s own will be competing in her second Olympic games at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.
Paula Moltzan made her second Olympic alpine team after qualifying with a series of podium appearances in the season beginning Oct. 25. Moltzan was one of the first three women named to the team, along with Burnsville-raised superstar Lindsey Vonn and two-time gold-medalist Mikaela Shiffrin.
“It’s special,” Moltzan said. “This one will be more special because my family will be able to attend.”
While nothing is guaranteed, she said she was confident that she would return to the U.S. team for a second time.
“I had a really incredible season last year,” Moltzan said. “I don’t think anyone ever expects anything in sports, but I was confident in my ability to qualify for the Olympic team this year.”
Moltzan’s path to the U.S. team was circuitous. Born in Prior Lake to two ski instructors, she credits her time at Buck Hill in Burnsville under the tutelage of legendary skiing coach Erich Sailer with providing the foundation for her career.
Sailer, a U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame inductee, instructed Vonn as well as Olympians Kristina Koznick (of Burnsville), Julia Mancuso, Sarah Schleper and Resi Stiegler at either Buck Hill or his camps.
Moltzan attended Lakeville South High School before moving to Vail, Colo., the epicenter of skiing in the United States. The resort town is the same place Vonn moved at a similar age and the hometown of Shiffrin.
She started skiing with the national team in 2012, including notching a junior world championships slalom gold medal in 2015 at 20 years old, but was cut after a series of poor World Cup performances.
She opted to ski collegiately, enrolling at the University of Vermont, putting up dominant performances in the 2017 and 2018 seasons, winning the 2017 NCAA women’s slalom championship and being named a two-time First Team All-American.
She rejoined the World Cup circuit, eventually qualifying for the 2022 Winter Olympics at 27, finishing eighth in the slalom and 12th in the giant slalom and helped the U.S. notch a fourth-place victory in the team event.
Since then, Moltzan, who lives in Vermont with her husband and technician, Ryan Mooney, has continued logging podium performances in World Cup events. She contributed to a gold medal victory for the U.S. team at the 2023 World Championships.
She had a strong 2025 season – which included a third-place finish in each of the slalom and giant slalom events enroute to a bronze medal in the giant slalom at the 2025 World Championships.
Her 2026 season has so far netted three podium appearances in slalom and giant slalom.
All the while, she is still battling, including a nasty fall during a competition just after Christmas in Semmering, Austria.
“I’m definitely lingering with some back pain, but hopefully on the up and up,” Moltzan said. “I just flew my personal physical therapist back over to put me back together before we get along too much further in the season.”
It must have worked. Just six days after the fall, she logged a third-place finish in giant slalom at Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. Two weeks later, she stepped on the podium again with a second-place slalom finish in Flachau, Austria.
Olympic women’s ski events begin Feb. 8. The team combined slalom event is slated for Feb. 10. The women’s giant slalom runs are Feb. 15 while the slalom competition is Feb. 18.
