Dream Fulfilled: Student Recounts Winter Olympic Experience

Celine Sommerová ’29 with her father, Stepan Sommer.

Celine Sommerová ’29 had no sooner accepted that her Olympic skiing dreams would remain just out of reach this winter than a life-changing phone call – taken, fittingly, slopeside – allowed her to tearfully un-accept that reality.

Sommerová – in the midst of her freshman year at UNH – had initially missed qualifying for the Czechia team in slalom for the 2026 Winter Olympics by one spot, ending up as the first person left off the roster. The outcome took time to process, but she eventually resigned herself to the situation and turned her focus to enjoying the rest of the UNH ski season.

“I love skiing so much, so I just accepted it,” Sommerová says. I said, ‘You know what? It’s fine, it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t really take away from anything.’”

Then her dad called.

Sommerová was between runs while competing with the UNH ski team in Canada when her father – who is also one of her personal coaches – rang her. The two chatted for a minute when he interrupted to say he had another call coming in.

“I was just talking to him and he was like, ‘Hold on, I’m getting a call.’ So he hangs up and then calls me right back and says, ‘So, I have good news – you’re going to the Olympics!’” Sommerová says. “It was so emotional. I just started crying.”

That emotion needed to turn quickly into motion. Her father’s call came through on Feb. 9 – three days after the opening ceremonies at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Games in Italy.  Sommerová – who took the place of an athlete who opted not to race and gave her spot on the roster back – was set to compete in the slalom Feb. 18, giving her nine days to process the news, arrive in the Olympic village, and get herself ready to race.

The scramble did little to dampen her appreciation for the magnitude of the moment. As soon as she arrived in Italy, she found herself actively filing every memory away.

“At first, it was so surreal. In my head I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m at the Olympics.’ But I just kept thinking, ‘I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life,’” Sommerová says. “I was just kind of mesmerized by the whole thing.”

The Olympic experience was the culmination of years of hard work for Sommerová. Her father, Stepan Sommer, was a professional hockey player who always had a passion for skiing, and her mother, Jennifer Sommer, put her and her sister in ski lessons at Attitash Mountain in Bartlett, New Hampshire, when Sommerová was 4 years old. (That sister, Elese, competed in the 2022 Winter Olympics as an alpine skier with Czech Republic.)

Her father’s family is from Czechia, and the family still has a home there. Sommerová has dual citizenship and has split her time between the United States and international locales for much of her teenage and young adult life, skiing for extended periods in Europe.

Her family had homes in Vermont and in Rochester, New Hampshire, before settling in Milton, New Hampshire, for her high school years.

Sommerová attended VLACS for high school – choosing the more flexible, customized experience – before enrolling at UNH in part because of her love for the New Hampshire Seacoast and the opportunity to join the ski team. She is majoring in health science in the College of Health and Human Services.

"I could have gone to college in Europe a lot cheaper, but no one does sports and school like the U.S. does,” Sommerová says. “I love the style of learning, and I really wanted the team environment that I’m in right now. That was huge for me to come here.”

That close-knit sports environment and camaraderie was evident as soon as Sommerová shared the news of her Olympic qualification with her UNH teammates. She sent a text to the team chat and was immediately inundated with overjoyed congratulatory responses – many in all caps and at least one in which she was referred to as the GOAT (the greatest of all time).

She had a couple of humorous interactions with UNH professors when she broke the news that she’d be missing class time to attend the Olympics, as well. She had already been out of class for a week while the UNH team was competing in Canada, and suddenly had to request a last-minute addition to her time away.

“I had already been missing the previous week due to competition, so then I kind of had to email my teachers and say, ‘Hi, I’m going to the Olympics,’” Sommerová quips. All of her professors were understanding and very accommodating, she says.

Though she was away from her normal routine and her UNH teammates, her family was able to join her on the Olympic journey. Both her mom and dad were there, as was her grandparents and her aunt.

That proved memorable not just for sharing a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but also for needed support. Sommerová was unable to finish her run in the slalom, earning a DNF after straddling a gate about two-thirds of the way through the course, so having loved ones close proved heartening.

“I was really upset after I went out in that first round, and having my family comforting me was really nice. That was pretty memorable,” Sommerová says.

Though the race didn’t end the way she’d hoped, the experience – especially given the whirlwind change of plans and opportunity to compete at the young age of 22 – is something Sommerová says will stay with her forever. 

She was also aware enough in the moment to take nothing for granted, knowing a return Olympic trip is not promised. She has just three years of eligibility left and says “I’m not sure exactly where I’m going to be in three or four years.”

Knowing that, she turned extra focus toward soaking up every minute she had in Italy. She enjoyed the opportunity to meet other Olympians and watch them compete – she was in the crowd for curling, and for the bronze medal game in men’s ice hockey – and also took full advantage of the chance to trade pins in the dining hall, scoring one from the Jamaican bobsled team among her treasures.

The experience was truly the trip of a lifetime for Sommerová, who still struggles to believe it was all real sometimes.

“That was a lifelong dream,” she says. “I don’t think I’ve even fully processed it at this point. I just know I am going to remember it forever.”