US Freestyle Skier Alex Hall

26-year old Alex Hall is the reigning gold medal winner in the Men’s Slopestyle event per the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Can he do it again in Milan Cortina in 2026? Yes, but for Hall it’s not just about winning. He’s gotta do it his way, win, lose or draw.

The Slopestyle Event

Slopestyle riders perform tricks and jumps on a sloping course over multiple ramps, rails and other obstacles.

The top of the course features rails – like a metal handrail you hold on to when going down some stairs – and other unique “jib” features, while the bottom section of the course contains three huge jumps, which the athletes jettison off the top to complete a number of twists, flips and grabs.

The final jump is generally the most explosive, meaning it must be landed well to create a real showstopper that – hopefully – leaves the judges with a good last impression of the run.

Competitors at the Olympic level are scored by a panel of judges looking at four things: Amplitude (the speed, trajectory and arc by which the skier hits each jump), trick difficulty, execution and overall impression

Beijing 2022: Slopestyle Gold

In Beijing Hall would shock the crowd and judges on his first run with his final jump. Hall would throw a right double cork 1080 bring-back, effectively stopping a rotation mid-air to come back the other way. It was a trick so innovative it had spectators and commentators roaring in awe. His score on that run (90.01 points) would earn him a gold medal.

“It definitely was the best slopestyle run I’ve ever done,” Hall said. “Mainly because it embodied everything I love about skiing and how I approach skiing. I didn’t fade away from that to try and maybe get bigger scores or something. I just kept it true to myself, and I think that the most important part about our sport is just doing it for the love and doing it how you want to do it and not changing that.”

Born in the USA (But Raised in Switzerland)

Alex Hall was born in Fairbanks, Alaska September 21, 1998. When he was one his parents, Marcus and Elena, would move the family to Zurich, Switzerland so both could teach at the University of Zurich. He would be raised there until he was 16 when the family would move back to the United States to Park City, Utah. Zurich is nestled in the swiss alps and Alex and his brother Aldo would grow up literally learning to ski in their backyard. He also developed a love of soccer while playing goalkeeper. Along the way Alex also would become fluent in German.

A Family Affair

Alex’s parents met while skiing. His mother Elena was born in Bologna, Italy. He grew up seeing old family movies of his parents skiing and was inspired by his dad who was a hot dogger always trying new tricks on skis. Elena’s family is of course still in Bologna. If Alex makes it to the Milan Cortina Olympics he can count on being cheered on by a big contingent of his mother’s family.

“My mom’s super into skiing, too. That’s how my dad and my mom met. My brother’s a big snowboarder, so we did it all growing up together. That was like our family activity every weekend. I was never in a program or on a team.”

Good At Everything

If you took a Swiss army knife and turned it into a person, you’d probably end up with Alex Hall. These days, most elite skiers choose to specialize in one, maybe two events.

In Olympic freestyle skiing an athlete can choose from Halfpipe, Slopestyle, Big Air and Moguls in individual events, in addition to team events. It’s hard to juggle more than 1-2 of these events in a competition moving from preliminary rounds to finals and from one venue to another, and stay competitive. Most don’t even try.

But just six weeks ago in January 2025 Alex Hall did it again at the Aspen X Games. He competed in four events: Slopestyle, free style, knuckle huck (Don’t ask me to explain) and big air. Turnaround times between events and heats were tight. Warm up times overlapped meaning Hall could not even warm up for all four events but he was still able to win his sixth X Games gold medal of his career–and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“The unique thing about Alex is that he is out there winning slopestyle events, winning big air contests, filming in the street, filming in the backcountry, and just skiing non-stop all winter long,” said fellow professional skier Tim McChesney in Restless. “Not a lotta kids do that anymore.”

I Did It My Way

So who knows if we will see Alex Hall at the Milan Cortina Games a year from now? A lot can happen. Things need to line up for athletes every four years to make the Games and/or medal: Training, avoiding injuries, funding, staying healthy, etc.,. He has to be considered a favorite. One thing is clear though: Alex will be Alex. That is he will choose jumps and moves that suit him. He has demonstrated over his career that choosing stunts just to maximize points to win is not his way.

“A big part of our sport is self-expression because pretty much what we’re doing is a series of tricks that we think are cool and we hope that the judges will also score well. Everyone always says our sport is so free and so open, but there’s set parameters, there’s still expectations to be met in terms of judging criteria.”

“My first couple of years competing, I did feel like I was trying to meet those parameters in a more traditional way, and I felt like just trying to do whatever I could to check the boxes and it wasn’t really working out for me too well. The last couple of years, I’ve been the most successful because I’m just doing pretty much exactly what I want to do.”