Meet the Macuga sisters, who became Olympic-class athletes by accident
“I would absolutely lose everything if one of them bumped,” Alli said. “I don’t think I could take that. I’d be so pissed if they beat me.”
At the family dinner last July, Dan turned around and smiled mischievously.
“Look at this,” he said softly before addressing the table. “So what’s the hardest sport?” »
The siblings argued for the next minute. Everything would have been fine, his father later commented, if some of the siblings’ disciplines had overlapped.
“It would be a nightmare,” Lauren said. “It would be world war Macuga in this house.”
Not being pushed to group together in a single sport reduced competition between siblings and allowed the Macugas to freely discuss their anxieties, stresses and successes with each other without worrying that it might cost them a place on a podium. In elite sport, not all athletes have such an outlet. The Macugas see their strong ties as an advantage.
Encouragement can be vital.
When Lauren won her first race in the prestigious Alpine World Cup in Austria in early 2025, she called Sam, who was in Norway, and told him she was troubled by the unexpected victory and the attention that came with it. They talked about it, in a way unique to Macuga. The siblings admit they don’t know the nuances of their respective disciplines, but they can understand the stress of life as a professional athlete.
“I haven’t competed in the World Cup or done moguls on the side,” Sam said. “But if you want to talk about being on the circuit, or having to travel a lot, or dealing with the ski team, like, yeah, I got you.”
Others noticed after Lauren’s victory. Lindsey Vonn, the gold medal-winning American skier, said “women like Lauren have so much potential, so much talent and work ethic.” Yet when Lauren tore a knee ligament in a fall during a training run in November, it ended her Olympic ambitions in a year when winning a medal could have brought her mainstream recognition.
“RIP acl,” she wrote on Instagram. Photos she later posted showed her wearing her trademark bucket hat in a hospital bed, post-surgery.
