Avital Carroll first moved from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where she graduated high school, to Park City in 2018. She had just made the U.S. national ski team, and stayed a member of the team until 2022, when she decided to change her nationality to Austria. 

This path was cleared for Carroll in 2020, when Austria extended citizenship to descendants of Holocaust survivors who had to flee the country during the war. Her grandmother, Elfi Hendell, was one of these survivors, a woman born in Vienna, Austria in 1932, who fled to Italy then the U.S. with her family, eventually landing in New York in 1944. 

Carroll applied and was granted her Austrian citizenship in 2021. While the later decision to switch over to their ski team wasn’t an easy one, she was fueled by a larger purpose. 

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Carroll sought and still seeks to get other Jewish Austrians to return for their citizenship, and also hopes to increase Jewish and overall participation in skiing and moguls skiing. Her decision to change citizenship helped her do that.

“It kind of embodied everything I wanted,” Carroll said about her switch. “It means a lot to be able to wear that (Austrian kit), and I’m so honored and grateful.”

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Carroll said the Austrian ski federation has been nothing but welcoming, and it was actually her grandmother that got her whole family involved in the sport. Because Austria didn’t carry with it the best memories for her grandmother, Carroll said it was tough to explain her choice to represent the country, but she soon came to understand the bigger picture. 

Carroll’s biggest supporter throughout this entire change and her skiing career overall has been her husband Bobby Carroll. Bobby is a Park City native and former professional moguls skier himself. 

Bobby now coaches the Australian men’s team and his wife, personally. Both of them joked at moments that they seem to not get into too many arguments, so the coaching relationship must be working OK.

“It works pretty well,” Bobby said on the arrangement. “We don’t argue too much or too often.”

The pair got married in September of 2020, after getting engaged four years to-the-date Tuesday, at the base of the Champion run at Deer Valley. They now travel the globe together along the FIS World Cup circuit, spending months of the year in Austria and Park City, the latter where Carroll said they hope to one day raise a family. 

Carroll hopes to take home some Olympic hardware in 2026, and in the meantime she’s shaking off any remaining injury rust. She broke a bone in her ankle back at the Ruka Cup in early-December, and the Deer Valley Cup this past weekend was only her second back since then. 

Carroll ended up claiming 18th and 19th place in the dual and solo moguls events, respectively, at Deer Valley. After her duals run on Saturday, one member of the Australian staff loudly offered his cheers for her. 

The Carrolls hope to continue their success on the mountain, as the 2023-24 season winds down in March. Next up is the second to last Cup in Almaty, Kazakhstan, from March 8-10, before the season concludes on March 16 with the final Cup in Chiesa in Valmalenco, Italy. 

Carroll is currently 35th in the overall women’s Cup standings, while Bobby’s top Australian skiers are Cooper Woods and Matt Graham, who sit at 7th and 20th in the overall men’s standings. 

To track Carroll, Woods and Graham’s progress throughout the rest of the season, see the FIS website: fis-ski.com/en/freestyle-freeski/moguls-aerials. For further information regarding Carroll’s family story and more, see her website: bigairsbigheart.com.