{"id":802797,"date":"2020-01-06T17:13:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T00:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=376905"},"modified":"2020-01-06T17:13:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T00:13:47","slug":"a-brotherly-love-friscos-fagan-freeski-twins-reach-world-cup-youth-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/a-brotherly-love-friscos-fagan-freeski-twins-reach-world-cup-youth-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"A brotherly love: Frisco\u2019s Fagan freeski twins reach World Cup, Youth Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kiernan and Deven Fagan synchronize their slopestyle jumps during a training camp at Saas Fe, Switzerland.<\/strong>
Courtesy Fagan family<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

In a youth sporting ecosystem rife with club teams and coaches, identical twins Kiernan and Deven Fagan were effectively each other\u2019s coaches through childhood. Their freeskiing textbook was YouTube. And their practice ground was the backyard trampoline.<\/p>\n

Back at their family\u2019s home in Brownfield, Maine, the boys watched clips of their favorite American freeski stars, like Bobby Brown of Breckenridge and Tom Wallisch. They\u2019d then go outside to their trampoline and reenact the moves to the best of their abilities, dreaming of the World Cup and Youth Olympic stages they are now on as 17-year-old members of the U.S freeski program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got them into competing,\u201d their mother Erika said, \u201cbecause I wanted them to compete against other people and not just each other, because they are competitive in all things. I was like, \u2018You\u2019ve got to compete against other people.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The twins\u2019 brotherly love for park freeskiing led them to the biggest stage on which they could hone their skills together near their home: Sunday River Resort in Newry, Maine. There they took the tricks they taught each other on the trampoline to the biggest jumps Sunday River had.<\/p>\n

Back at their home in Brownfield, the twins\u2019 father, Patrick, used his snowplow to build jumps. On the nearby field, the family used PVC piping and plywood to build homemade rails and boxes to practice the kind of jib tricks for which the boys admired stars like Brown.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just started progressing so much every day and trying new stuff every time we\u2019d go out there,\u201d Kiernan said.<\/p>\n

Before the family decided to make the move from Maine to Summit County a few years back, the 11-year-old twins got the chance to watch Brown at a competition at Sunday River.<\/p>\n

It was around that time that Patrick and Erika decided it would be best to have Deven and Kiernan compete out west at top youth competitions, like the USASA Nationals at Copper Mountain Resort. During this transition from smaller competitions in Maine to bigger youth competitions, the boys say they still were each other\u2019s coaches.<\/p>\n

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