Two Park City Olympians turn to teaching and coaching

Just like the proverbial trails which have led Olympians Shumate and Ringquist back to their Park City roots, pictured here is the literal trail one is now coaching local athletes on. Photo: TownLift // Michele Roepke

PARK CITY, Utah — Two Olympians from Park City have retired as competitive athletes and are spending their newfound time giving back to their community; Abby Ringquist, 2018 PyeongChang nordic ski jumper, and Jared Shumate, 2022 Beijing nordic combined, both grew up in the Park City School District and were involved with Park City Ski and Snowboard.

Ringquist told TownLift, “I absolutely love working and teaching at Weilenmann School of Discovery (WSD), it’s an amazing group of humans that are providing the very best education and experiences to pre-K to 8th graders in the Wasatch Back and the Wasatch Front.”

In WSD’s outdoor education program, she and two other teachers take a whole grade level outside for three and a half hours, regardless of weather, each week and learn about different themes in nature using the arts, science, and physical skills to discover all aspects of their lesson.

“It truly feels like my purpose in life to teach and play with these kiddos,” Ringquist said. “They are so creative and adventurous, it is an absolute blast. I get the best of both my worlds, doing art and exploring the outdoors with my students.” Her college degree is in Art.

Shumate works as an assistant cross-country running coach for Park City High School. 

He told TownLift, “It’s been really fun to change roles and coach for the high school cross country running team. I like to think I have some helpful insights into how to train and race that I can teach the team.”

“They’re a really good group of kids, and it’s rewarding to see them improve every day and show up to races and run fast,” Shumate concluded by saying, “It’s cool to be part of the program.”

When he’s not coaching, he’s competing as a long distance trail running athlete and as such he recently got a top 30 result in the Wasatch 100 mile race. 

Inspiring his high school athletes, sophomore, varsity runner Tatum Flach won Saturday’s Park City Invitational three mile leg with a time of 18:26.4. The annual season opener event brought schools from around the state but adjacent states as well. The home-hosted event was held at the Round Valley, Park City Sports Complex at Quinns Junction. The number of schools attending totaled at least 15.