SUN VALLEY, Idaho — Used to be, Lauren Macuga was best known for her collection of bucket hats and colorful shirts with American flags all over them.
Now it’s her skiing that’s getting all the buzz.
Macuga went from an up-and-comer to a legitimate medal contender at next year’s Milan-Cortina Olympics this season. And it happened almost as fast as she skis.
She raised eyebrows in December by winning two super-Gs in a lower-tier event at Copper Mountain, finishing ahead of eventual overall champion Federica Brignone. A month later, Macuga got her first World Cup victory, in the super-G at St. Anton, Austria.
She medaled in her very first world championships, winning the bronze in super-G. And earlier this month, she was second in a World Cup downhill in Kvitfjell, Norway.
With one race left at the World Cup finals, the 22-year-old is the top U.S. woman in the overall standings.
“It’s just been chaos. But it’s been fantastic,” Macuga said Tuesday after finishing 15th, good enough to earn her points, in her first-ever World Cup giant slalom race. “I couldn’t have asked for a better season. I mean my team, the support and just, it’s literally just been so fun.”
Fun is the operative word in the Macuga family.
Dan and Amy Macuga (pronounced muh-SUE-gah) moved their family to Park City, Utah, when their kids were small. Name a snow sport, and it can be done in Park City because of the facilities left over from the 2002 Olympics, and the Macuga kids tried most of them.
Lauren and her brother Daniel gravitated to ski racing. Younger sister Alli took to moguls. Older sister Sam loved the thrill of ski jumping.
Mind you, this was meant to just be a fun thing, a way for the kids to stay active. Not produce future Olympic hopefuls.
And yet, that’s where they are, with Lauren, Alli and Sam all on their respective national teams and Daniel racing on one of the lower circuits.
“I don’t know how we got here,” Amy Macuga said. “It just all suddenly happened. It’s pretty surreal.”
Or chaos, as Lauren Macuga happily describes it. (Sam even carried a sign with “Chaos Cougs” on Tuesday.)
Amy Macuga uses a spreadsheet to keep her kids’ schedules straight, as well as another to track who is taking care of the family pets while they crisscross the globe. The siblings make frequent use of the location functions on their phones to keep tabs on where the others are.
And sometimes there’s a little intervention by the travel gods.
Earlier this season, Sam was in the Munich airport when someone came up behind her at baggage claim. Turns out, Lauren was flying through Munich, too, and had spotted her sister.
“She scared me so bad! I was like, `I’m hallucinating. Lauren, what are you doing here?’” Sam said, laughing at the memory. “It was so funny. We sent a selfie to our family.”
With the exception of Daniel, the whole family was in Sun Valley over the weekend. Though the downhill race Saturday was canceled and Lauren had her first-ever “did not finish” in the super-G, it didn’t put a damper on what has been a breakout season for the burgeoning star.
Macuga was in the top five in seven of her 19 races, and in the top 10 in another three. Though she wound up fourth in the team combined at the world championships, she had the fastest downhill run in the event.
Macuga finished the season fourth in the downhill standings, and sixth in super-G.
“My expectations for the season were high, but I definitely surpassed them. Which has been so exciting,” she said before the World Cup finals began. “My super-G expectations were definitely high and my downhill, I was hoping it was as good last year and now it’s just as good as my super-G. It’s really cool to … say, `If I can put my best skiing down, it can be a really good run.’”
Her success, along with her bubbly personality and made-for-NBC family story, will put Macuga squarely in the spotlight ahead of next year’s Olympics. While that kind of attention can be daunting, Macuga is made for it.
Even before she was challenging for podiums, Macuga stood out from other skiers with her goofy hats. It started four years ago, she said, when she spotted a cute bucket hat with mushrooms on it and wore it in the finish area. It quickly became her signature and, in a sport where athletes can be anonymous once they take off their helmets, has helped make Macuga a fan favorite.
Keep skiing like this, and she could pick up some new, shinier accessories at the Milan-Cortina Olympics.
“(This season gave me) a lot of confidence and it’s so cool. But it’s also crazy to be like, no, I still have to work hard through the summer,” Macuga said. “Yeah, I’m sitting very well right now, but it’s all up to next year and you can’t just sit around and do nothing.
“It actually gets me more excited to work harder to try to get even better for the Olympics.”
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.