Lent 2026
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When Sarah Schleper and her 18-year-old son Lasse Gaxiola take to the slopes for Team Mexico at the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, they will make history as the first mother-son duo ever to compete together at the same Winter Games.
It is a moment that brings to mind something every parent knows in their bones: our greatest influence often isn’t in words, but in the life we share. As Schleper herself reflected this week, her journey back into competitive skiing — and now alongside her son — has been shaped by family, perseverance, and a shared dream.
Sarah’s career is remarkable on its own: seven Olympic appearances, decades of World Cup experience, and a trailblazing spirit that has taken her from the U.S. national team to representing Mexico with pride. But what makes this chapter especially tender is not the number of starts on her résumé, but the fact that her son will be beside her as both competitor and companion.
Lasse Gaxiola actually began skiing at age four. In the years since, his mother has been more than a trainer or supporter — she has been a living example of what it looks like to pursue excellence with heart and humility. Their qualification for Milan-Cortina was not just athletic; it was emotional, a fulfillment of a dream first dreamed on family slopes and shared long before either stood on an Olympic start gate.
This milestone calls to mind other families whose love and encouragement anchored their children’s paths. In alpine skiing circles, for instance, Olympic gold medalist Barbara Cochran raised her children on the slopes of Vermont long before her son Ryan Cochran‑Siegle made his own Olympic mark — always highlighting passion over medals as the true measure of success.
That combination — support without pressure, joy without expectation — is what many parents long to offer. It is tempting to think that children will follow our footsteps only if we push them; the Schleper-Gaxiola story quietly suggests the opposite. When a parent shows up with love, pride, and shared enthusiasm — whether on a snowy mountain or at the dinner table — children often want to follow.
Family is not a sideline to life's purpose
This moment can be a reminder that parenting is part celebration and part witness. Parents who live honestly, pursue passion with integrity, and cheer on their children’s gifts are doing something profoundly spiritual. They are offering a living sacrament of love: visible, shared, enduring.
There will, of course, be competition ahead — gates to negotiate, times to chase, moments of tension and stress that are part of any Olympic run. But if this duo’s story teaches us anything, it is that family is not a sideline to life’s purpose; it is part of the race itself. A mother who skied with her toddler in her arms years ago now shares the Olympic course with that same child, not just in memory but in reality.
That example — of joy lived alongside discipline, of encouragement as motivation, of presence as invitation — is the kind of parenting that stays with a child long after the medals have been counted. It is not about perfection, but about shared experience and mutual delight in growth.
What Schleper and Gaxiola are doing on the world stage is inspiring, surely. But what resonates most deeply is the ordinary wonder beneath it: a mother and son who love the journey together, who meet life’s peaks and valleys as a team — a family whose presence to one another becomes the truest legacy they carry.
