LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — Perched in the snow-covered Italian Alps, Patti Sherman-Kauf fondly remembers how, four years before, in another valley and a world away in Wyoming, she glowed with pride watching a line of headlights approach in the middle of the night.

Those cars were full of family and friends coming to gather around a television and watch her daughter, freestyle skier Jaelin Kauf, compete in moguls at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. Bedlam broke out in the bar owned by her father when Jaelin won the silver medal.

“It was a line, at 1:30 in the morning, snaking through the valley up to the bar for the watch party,” Sherman-Kauf recalled. "There were like 150 people there watching in this little bar. Being able to watch it on TV with all our friends and family, that was amazing.”

But, she told The Associated Press, nothing compares to breathing in the frosty alpine air, standing at the foot of a ski course and cheering on Jaelin as she shows her speed, agility and aerial stunts at the 2026 Winter Olympics, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic had stopped her loved ones from accompanying her to China.

In Livigno, Sherman-Kauf is joined by Jaelin’s father and brother, and about 30 more people who had also been at that bar back in Alta, Wyoming, right on the Idaho border. Besides that hard-core group waving “J" for Jaelin signs, there were dozens more family members of Team USA skiers, most decked out in red-while-and-blue caps, coats, scarves and sweaters. And everybody cheered for everyone, regardless of the country they represented.

"Freestyle is a big family,” Sherman-Kauf said, taking a moment to give her daughter a hug before she joined her teammates atop the slope.

Jaelin’s long-standing motto is “deliver the love.”

That reminder to just embrace what she does, despite the outcome, is there written on her helmet.

On Tuesday, Jaelin was on the receiving end of that love delivery.

“I could see all the Js waving from up in the start gate and could hear them cheering for me down here. I love having them around. They give me so much energy,” Jalein said after completing her qualifying run.

Turns out that the 29-year-old, who made her Olympic debut in 2018 with her family there to support her, is going to need some more of those positive vibrations to keep her quest for another medal alive.

A costly bobble on her qualifying run wrecked her score, which is based on a skier’s execution of those hip-swiveling “turns” used to navigate the bumpy slope, along with the difficulty of two acrobatic jumps, and the time. She finished 27th of 29 riders, missing out on the top 10 who advanced to the final.

On Wednesday, she will need to be among the top 10 skiers of the 20 who failed to advance the day before. The final is later the same day.

“The plan for tomorrow is to just put down some my runs,” Jaelin said. “Obviously, you know, like going for gold out here.”

Jaelin, who has a world championship title in dual moguls and over 50 World Cup podiums, has been here before.

She even has moguls in the blood.

Both Sherman-Kauf and Jaelin’s father, Scott Kauf, are multiple-time champions in the freestyle discipline from the 1980s and ’90s.

Now, at an active 62, Sherman-Kauf said “you couldn’t pay me to get on this course,” while craning her neck to look up at the huge slope where her daughter and the other skiers pound their way down the back-breaking, knee-bending bumps only interrupted by the two ramps where they launch into twisting leaps.

But will she still give her daughter some advice for the do-or-die second round of qualifying on Wednesday?

Never.

“A hug and have fun is all,” Sherman-Kauf said. “It’s her thing and not ours, because she gets a lot of, ‘Oh, your parents were skiers,’ and that’s all great, the history and all that, but this is her thing, right?

"We’re not Olympic medalists."

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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics