Abby Winterberger, representing the United States’ team in the 2026 Olympic games at Milano Cortina, Italy, has family ties in West Milford.
At just 15 years old, she is the youngest athlete on the nation’s team.
Her great-grandparents, Joseph and Dorothea Winterberger, were among the first families to settle in the High Crest Lake community. Their son, Pete Winterberger, married Carol Giuseffi, also of High Crest Lake. Pete and Carol raised two sons, Pete and Jim, both graduates of West Milford High School. Carol and her mother both were teachers in the West Milford School district, Carol at the high school and Doris Guiseffi, her mother, at Paradise Knoll School. Abby Winterberger is the daughter of Jim and Rosemary Winterberger.
It is not surprising that Jim and Rosemary, both with a passion for skiing, settled in Truckee, Calif., not far from Lake Tahoe, and are raising Abby and her older brother, Mack, who also competes and wins ski events, there. The region is known for breeding Olympic talent.
Belonging to the Olympic Valley freestyle team allowed Abby to train in multiple disciplines, including moguls. Donna Weinbrecht, who grew up at High Crest Lake and was a leader in establishing the West Milford High School ski team, won the first Gold Medal in the first Olympic mogul competition in the 1992 Olympics in Albertsville, France. She grew up at High Crest Lake and was a neighbor of the Winterbergers. She was also World Champion in 1991 and a five-time World Cup season champion.
Abby’s path to the games is rare, if not unpreceded, in halfpipe skiing, according to a news release from her club, the Olympic Valley Freestyle Freeride Team. The typical pipeline to the Olympics is through U.S. Ski and Snowboard Rookie and Proteam, but Winterberger made it as the lone club-level free ski athlete to qualify, a historic feat in a sport that debuted in the Olympics in 2014 at Sochi.
Cooper Davidson, Abby’s long-time coach, has been quoted as saying “Abby’s dedication, progression and fearlessness in the pipe have been incredible to watch.”
She began skiing with her parents sharing their love of the sports with her and Mack when she was just 2 years old. By the time she was six, Abby began competing, following her brother onto the slopes. She took Gold in both slopestyle and half pipe at the 2024 USASA competition. She made her World Cup debut during the 2025-26 season, she earned three top ten finals.