Holly Brooks is no ordinary story. She grew up in Seattle, a city not associated with Nordic skiing.  Her own high school had few sports, so she played soccer and ran track for a larger school that was nearby. When she first started skiing, it was with her family, who would drive to find snow on the weekends.

Holly skied for Whitman College, but didn’t get much racing experience and never raced at NCAA’s.

After college Holly coached at the Maine Winter Sports Center and then moved up to Anchorage, Alaska to coach for the Alaska Winter Stars. She then became the head coach of West High School before taking her current job at APU (Alaska Pacific University), where she coaches the junior, masters, and Women’s-only programs.

In 2008 she discovered that she could ski pretty darn fast by winning the Tour of Anchorage marathon.  The next season she narrowly missed a victory in the American Birkebeiner in a finish line sprint.

Holly won three SuperTour races, taking second in three more (including the 20km at US Nationals), and tacking on a couple more top-5 finishes.  With these races Holly put herself in position to be named to the 2010 Olympic Team. Most recently, in the pre-Olympic World Cup in Canmore she took 21st in the sprint qualification and 24th in the 10km skate.