By Marty Basch

With an Olympic gold medal in Vancouver behind her, veteran U.S. Freestyle Team mogul skier Hannah Kearney is ready for the starting gate.

"It feels a little less stressful coming off an Olympic year," said the 24-year-old from Norwich, Vermont. "It's not that I'm not training just as hard but it just feels like there is less tension. An Olympic year is ultra competitive and exhausting."

Kearney, who skied through the ranks of the Ford Sayre and Waterville Valley's Black and Blue Trail Smashers programs, is leading the 2011 team along with fellow Olympians aerialist Jeret "Speedy" Peterson and mogulist Bryon Wilson. New Englanders on the roster include Michael Morse, Stacey Cook, Dylan Ferguson, Jeremy Cota and David DiGravio.

"There's always a change in the dynamic of the team after an Olympic cycle," she said. "But we have a lot of depth because of our population and strong development program. A lot of young kids will have the chance to compete on the World Cup stage."

Kearney, the 2009 World Cup moguls champ,  has 10 career World Cup wins. The season begins with a December 11 World Cup in Ruka, Finland and includes the World Championships in February at Deer Valley and the U.S. Freestyle Championships in late March at Stratton in her home state of Vermont.

"The end of the season will be here before we know it," she said. "Stratton will be a kind of homecoming for me at the end of the year because my family and friends will be able to come. It's almost in my backyard for me."

She's looking forward to racing dual moguls where skiers race side-by-side and advance by winning the round.

"Once you get in the starting gate the feeling is the same," she says. "My desire is there to win. My motivation to ski is the same. Past success is just that and has nothing to do with once you are in the starting gate."

Kearney augmented her dry land training workouts with water ramping in Steamboat, Colo. and Lake Placid, N.Y. earlier this year where skiers propel themselves down a ramp and into water.