Amy Donaldson: Hard work, believing were keys for Resi Stiegler reaching her goal

Saying the words was the easiest part.

"I believe in myself."

Resi Stiegler said that sentence to herself often, as she embarked on what she thought would be a successful ski career. She made the U.S. Olympic team at 21 and competed in the 2006 Winter Games.

And then came the injuries.

A crash in 2007 broke her forearm, right shinbone, tore ligaments in her knee and bruised her face and hip.

Stiegler worked her way back onto skis and finished 19th in slalom on Valentine's Day 2009.

A week later she broke her foot and missed the rest of the season.

In November of 2009 she was on track to make the U.S. Olympic Team and compete in Vancouver. And then she had a horrific crash that broke her left tibia and femur.

She watched the Olympics on crutches.

The physical demands of rehab were the easy part.

"My injuries always inspired me to come back," she said. "I knew I could do it."

But Stiegler wasn't trying to get back to what she was before those injuries, she wanted to return to snow an even better skier.

"I wasn't coming back from winning World Cups," said the 26-year-old, who competed in the GS and slalom this season. "I had never made a podium before. I was trying to come back from an injury and be better. The coaches were pushing me really hard, and I didn't like it sometimes."

She trained hard over the summer with her best friend Sarah Schleper, a four-time Olympian. They had plans to push each other all season; they had visions of finally living up to their own expectations.

And then Schleper unexpectedly decided to retire in Dec. 2011. It was a devastating loss to Stiegler, who was struggling to even finish a race, let alone place in the top 30.

It was her own expectations while healthy that began to eat away at her confidence.

Stiegler knew she was good. She knew she could be one of the world's best ski racers. She knew she had the talent. She knew she had the passion.

What she didn't have was results.

In a lifetime of competing, she'd never won a GS race.

"I was skiing really well, I thought," she said of the early part of the season. "I just kept not having the result I wanted."

She had new coaches and they asked her to change her training, tweak her technique. She didn't always appreciate being pushed out of her comfort zone.

She continued to struggle in races.

That belief began to fade; doubt took it's place.

"Maybe I'm not as good as I think I am," she recalled thinking. "Maybe I'm not going to make it. What is it? What's going on? How come I keep getting beat? I kept telling myself, 'You've got to have a breakthrough'."

It was her love of skiing that kept her training, kept her focused. She did what her coaches asked, even when she was unsure of how it would help.

She watched her teammates succeed — Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso — and realized she couldn't realize her dream of standing in that finish area celebrating a victory if she only did what she'd always done.

"It really made me think about how hard you have to train if you want to be on the podium," she said. "If you haven't achieved what you want, then you need to make a change to become better."

She decided to compete in a NorAm in Vail, Colo., in early February, which is a step below the World Cup circuit.