GEORGE PISENTI INTERVIEW
We recently got news that some of our own MMSST athletes got accepted into the Monster Army! A huge congratulations to them and a little more about what that means - Monster Army is a development team for up and coming athletes. It helps with networking and getting their name out in the amateur world, with hopes to become a part of the Monster Energy team.
George Pisenti, like the others recently welcomed to the team, start with one star while our own Campbell Burrows, who has been on the development team for 3 seasons now, has made his way up to 3/5 stars. We caught up with George who told me all about his training in Colorado and what this all means to him.
George is 16 years old and has been skiing most of his life - unsurprisingly, he learned at Mammoth Mountain. He credits his mom Shelley for getting him into the sport but says his friend Scotty Lapp pushed him to get up to Tahoe more and more and think about actually competing. They grew up together in Tiburon, playing baseball, and eventually skiing on the big mountain team at Tahoe. Scotty actually passed away in February of 2022, doing what he loved. It inspired the phrase #skiforscotty, and inspires George daily. He says that Scotty loved skiing more than anyone he knows and helped foster his own love for the sport. He started on the team only 5 years ago and decided it was something he really did want to pursue. He made the move to Mammoth Lakes and this will be his third season on the elite team.
He credits the MMCF sponsored FLEX Program for helping him with his school schedule, skiing with the team Sunday-Thursday and doing his school check ups on Friday. He appreciates the program because it allows him to get ahead on his schoolwork, especially when long competition days are coming up. He is headed to Copper next week for Rev Tour and says he got ahead on schoolwork so he doesn't have to worry about it while he's there competing!
He explained how they went to Copper back in December for 10 days for half pipe training. The training was canceled last year due to lack of snow, but typically, Copper has one of the first early season half pipes up and ready to train on! The half pipe team goes every year to get ready for the competition season. This was the first year that George went for early season training, getting a house with 6 other athletes right in the village. He said the hot tubs were pretty nice and they tried their best not to cause too much trouble.
George says he's Italian, and if he could only eat one meal for the rest of his life, he would have to pick pizza - which I think is cheating since he says obviously, the toppings would change. But when asked about a dream vacation, he went back and forth a lot, saying the Maldives are very high on the list of places he wants to see! Which makes sense - he says he's a big water sport guy. He was on a sailing team growing up and says if he isn't skiing, you can find him out fishing (or building out computers!). We're incredibly proud of all our athletes and can't wait to see all the new Monster stickers on so many helmets!
