27 Jan New Yorker: Kenworthy Back to Olympics!
We curated the following story by Eren Orbey for The New Yorker about Gus Kenworthy and his upcoming encore: “Gus Kenworthy Lived an Olympic Version of ‘Heated Rivalry’.”
Below and ahead of a comeback in Milan, the Olympic freestyle skier and actor discusses alley-oops, auditions, and coming out of the closet as a professional athlete.
Go here for much more on Gus, who returns to his hometown as a guest of Gay Ski Week.
Go here for more on Gay Ski Week.
Image courtesy Orbey and The New Yorker.
If alpine skiing is about getting down a trail as fast as possible, freestyle skiing is about what you do along the way: flips, twists, and other high-wire shenanigans more typically associated with gymnastics or, in the world of winter sports, snowboarding. The 2014 Olympic Games, in Sochi, were the first to introduce the freestyle discipline of slopestyle, in which competitors make their way down a purpose-built course of rails and jumps, performing tricks as they go. That year, Americans swept the medals in slopestyle skiing, and Gus Kenworthy, who took silver, emerged from the competition as a media favorite, making headlines for his efforts to rescue a family of stray dogs and for his status as an all-American hunk. He was linked to the figure skater Gracie Gold and to the pop star Miley Cyrus. Then, in 2015, he came out as gay, in a cover story for ESPN the Magazine, and became the first openly gay competitor in so-called action sports. At the next Winter Olympics, in Pyeongchang, Kenworthy missed the podium, but he reached a personal milestone when he was captured kissing his boyfriend on camera.
In the following years, Kenworthy began competing for Great Britain, where he was born, but he told the media that Beijing, in 2022, would be his last Games. Meanwhile, he turned his focus to acting, racking up credits in the revival of “Will & Grace” and on the ninth season of “American Horror Story.” He burnished his gay bona fides, guest-judging an episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and appearing as a mentor of sorts on the reality series “Coming Out Colton,” about his friend Colton Underwood, a former professional football player who dated thirty women on “The Bachelor” before announcing that he was gay. Like many retired Olympians, though, Kenworthy was left with a feeling that he had more to give. This May, he announced that he’d be making a bid for the 2026 Games, in Milan and Cortina, which begin on February 6th. Last week, it was announced that he’d made the team…
Continue reading Gus Kenworthy’s in-depth interview here.
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