LIVIGNO, Italy — Getting from the center of the Winter Games in Milan to this ski resort just a few miles from the Swiss border can be a thrill ride on its own, requiring hairpin turns through steep mountain passes befitting the Olympic events that will take place here when you finally arrive.
But the interesting thing about what’s happening in Livigno over the next two weeks is that most of the athletes here — the ones who will fly through the air on snowboards and skis performing mind-bending tricks — did not grow up dreaming about being Olympians at all.
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“The X games was the pinnacle,” said Nick Goepper, a 31-year-old freestyle skier. “It was the sort of the Olympics of our time. And there in the beginning, the Olympics was almost like an asterisk.”
Like everyone in his generation, Goepper was raised on the X Games, a creation of the late 1990s that brought winter sports counterculture to the mainstream when it hit ESPN in 2002. The Olympics? Those were for the proper skiers, but the X Games had the energy, the crowds, the danger.
And when the IOC tried to cash in on that phenomenon, adding a small handful of snowboard and freeski events to the Winter Olympics in hopes of appealing to a younger audience, many participants were hesitant to embrace it.
Much like their counterparts in skateboarding, which has undergone its own reckoning as an Olympic sport, the larger X Games community viewed it as too corporate, too competitive, too far from the pure artistry that drew kids like Goepper or Alex Hall to the sport in the first place.
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“Freeski experienced a little of that at the start,” Hall said. “Personally, I didn’t grow up watching the Olympics.
“In the end, the Olympics is amazing and it’s cool to have it, but freeskiing is so much more than the Olympics or the competition venue. There’s so many aspects to it that bring me a ton of joy, so [the Olympics is] an important category of freesking, but it isn’t everything.”
Alex Hall poses with his gold medal after winning the men’s slopestyle at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. (Al Bello/Getty Images)
(Al Bello via Getty Images)
Even as the reigning Olympic gold medalist in slopestyle, which debuted in 2014, Hall feels so comfortable saying that both because it’s true and because it reflects an interesting moment for the sports the IOC has imported from the X Games.
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They have now become such an important part of the Winter Olympics that they can stand on their own up here in Livigno, with 17 gold medals being awarded in freestyle skiing and 13 in snowboarding. Particularly for an American audience, these events have arguably surpassed the traditional Alpine ski events in terms of eyeballs and interest.
Yet at the same time, where the Olympics fits is part of an ongoing cultural shift. Everyone acknowledges that it’s good for these sports to be part of the Olympics because of the new fans and participants it attracts with each passing four-year cycle.
“You look at China coming in now, 12 years ago I don’t know if there were that many Chinese snowboarders,” said Red Gerard, who won the second-ever slopestyle gold in 2018 when he was a mere 17 years old. “I think it’s just given a lot of snowboarders a different avenue.”
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But is a gold medal the pinnacle of snowboarding or freestyle skiing? It’s still up for debate, in part because those who made it here understand they are not competing against all the best in their sport. It’s simply a numbers game: With limited spots available for Americans and Canadians, who have had such a historical head start and are generally dominant on their tour, potential medal winners are sitting at home.
“In some ways the field is more mellow because the U.S. team is so good,” Hall said. “It’s a little weird sometimes because you don’t feel like you have everyone at the event that should be there.”
Red Gerard took gold in the men’s snowboard slopestyle at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games. (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
(Dan Istitene via Getty Images)
At the same time, how important is the competitive aspect of their sport to begin with? In many ways, winning has long been secondary to pushing boundaries, entertaining fans and impressing each other with new tricks. For them, it’s not just sports, it’s art. How can you maintain that identity when you come to an Olympics and everyone acts like winning a gold medal is supposed to change your life?
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“Our sports are very lifestyle based,” Goepper said. “We’ve got a really deep culture built around them, and I would say respect and kudos from our peers is really valued by a lot of our community. I think that’s super important to maintain that value for the future of our sport. That’s what separates us from some of the other sports that are purely focused on higher, faster, stronger” — three tenants of the Olympic motto.
Still, even Goepper acknowledges as he prepares for his fourth Olympics that the gravity of this event, and only having one opportunity every four years, has altered the competitive legacy of snowboarders and freeskiers. The 14-year and 15-year olds who could contend at the next Winter Games are taking their cues from athletes whose attitudes are changing.
“For me, growing up, X Games has always been top of top,” 21-year old Troy Podmilsak said. “I feel like the last few years it’s kind of switched to being the Olympics now being our biggest and best event.”
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What does that mean for snowboarding and freestyle skiing as they entrench themselves even more as core parts of the Olympic movement? It’s just the next evolution in a cross-generational balancing act for athletes who want to stay true to their roots while taking advantage of a worldwide platform even the X Games can’t offer.
“Freeskiing is not an Olympic sport,” said Hunter Hess, who will make his debut at the Games this year. “It’s just a sport that gets to compete in the Olympics.”
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