My favorite thing about incredible athletes like Gus Kenworthy is how casual they look while performing the most insane tricks. He flips his skis back and forth on the railing of a bridge 30 feet above an icy river, as if it’s no big deal.
This Gus Kenworthy video “Fly,” the first part of a series, is a beautifully edited look at the athlete. Instead of just the glory moments, it also shows him shoveling jumps, hiking up, and even a few bloopers of him falling, as all freeskiers do while they are trying new things. This part of the 2013 video mostly features rails and but Kenworthy promises that the second installment will have more of the big jumps for which he’s notorious.
This is a great time to pause, take a deep breath, and watch Kenworthy before the frenzied competition this week. There are just two more Olympic qualifying events for the Freeskiing team, and Kenworthy is vying for a spot at Sochi in February. People tuning in to watch the Freeskiing events at the Olympics will be missing out on some of the best freeskiing competition, as most of the elite athletes come from the U.S. and the qualifiers promise to be some of the highlights of the year. The competition at Breckenridge this week and at Park City the following week will likely be even more challenging than that on the world stage in Russia.
Gus Kenworthy is a Telluride native and a member of the U.S. Freeskiing team. Freeskiing events have never before been included in the Olympics, and the 2014 games mark their debut. Read more about Gus Kenworthy in the winter/spring issue of Telluride Magazine. The video was filmed and edited by Robin Macdonald and George Knowles, and produced by Nike and Atomic.
Go Gus!
Most People Need Wings To Fly—Gus Kenworthy Just Needs Skis
