Believe it or not, American free skier Nick Goepper , a three-time Olympic medalist, thinks growing up in Indiana—a location that doesn’t exactly conjure up visions of powdery snow and ski chalets—worked to his advantage. Sure, the slope in Lawrenceburg , an Ohio River Valley city of some 5,000 residents, 20 miles west of downtown Cincinnati, had only a 400-ft. vertical drop. But the hill was so small that lights could keep the entire slope illuminated, giving Goepper access to hours of skiing