Gus has one of the most impressive
ski careers in the industry.
He's got X-Games medals, Dew-Tour medals,
World Cup medals, Olympic medal.
There's hardly a more decorated skier than Gus.
He was a great boy and he still is a great man.
Charismatic, creative, driven, an amazing all-round person.
Everyone loves him in Telluride.
Actually, for me, the biggest accomplishment
is coming out publicly
and being the first guy
in professional action sports to do that.
He competed for the U.S. for the last two Olympics
and this time around competing for Great Britain.
Which puts Great Britain in a great spot for a medal.
Hey mom!
I don't think that I was favored to get a medal.
Kind of helped because I had a little bit
less expectation put on me.
I knew I could do well and when I got there and saw the course,
I really knew that it catered to my strong suits.
The whole town basically came out
and we watched it at the bottom of the gondola.
It was pretty amazing.
All my friends and everybody in the town.
I remember going up the snowmobile
on the side of the course
and just talking to myself and being like,
"Dude, you've got this. Just like focus,
you've got one more run. The last run doesn't count."
But as soon as I landed, I kind of knew that I had done
the thing that I had gone there to do.
I've had very few things
that have felt as incredible as that moment
when I saw the score come in
and knew that I was in a medal position.
And then especially when the rest of the competition ended
and I had held out and had that medal.
I was born in Chelmsford, in Essex, England.
My mom's British and my dad's American,
so I lived in the UK
for like the first two years of my life.
And then we moved to Telluride.
Telluride is my favorite place in the entire planet.
It's absolutely gorgeous,
it's like a little town at the end of a box canyon.
Everybody knows everybody.
So it's a really close-knit community,
a really great place to grow up.
His dad would put him in the backpack
and we'd all go skiing as a family
and he would always be, "Faster, faster."
He loved it.
He started skiing and shortly after,
nobody could keep up with him.
What's up? I'm Gus Kenworthy from Telluride, Colorado.
He was so into skiing like more than anybody I'd ever met.
I ended up getting put into a race program,
but it was kind of too structured for me
and I ended up moving into moguls.
But the only part of it that I really loved was the jump.
Then the terrain park started.
He would just take off
and there was a posse of boys that did this.
They were like the first freestyle skiers in this town.
Silver medalist.
Representing United States of America.
After winning the medal in 2014,
there was this whole media tour that followed.
And so all the interviews they kept asking like,
"What's your type of girl? Who's your celebrity crush?"
And I was lying on TV and in magazines
and hated myself for it.
And even though I was afraid of coming out,
I just couldn't deal with the pain
and discomfort of being in the closet any longer.
Gus felt that the sport
wouldn't accept him for who he was.
Because it's such a macho action sports deal.
I was worried that my sponsors might drop me for it.
I thought I might start getting judged poorly at events.
He had some pretty black moments.
I told my mom and she was like, "I've always known."
Of course I did,
but I mean I didn't say anything until he told me.
It was really wonderful
and I was crying and it was it was super nice.
The following season after coming out,
I had my best competitive season to date.
I didn't miss a podium.
I started the season off with a win at the Dew Tour.
He was skiing better than he'd ever skied.
He just felt like he was authentic.
The year leading up to the Olympics,
he had one of the best seasons anybody's ever had.
So there were so many expectations on him.
I was definitely one of the medal favorites for my event.
I was like one of the faces of the Olympics.
Every camera was pointing at him.
It was tremendous pressure.
I was one of two openly gay men competing for the U.S.
and so I feel like there was a lot of support there,
but there was also a lot of pushback.
And it's disturbing how negative people can be.
I had death threats and horrible tweets
and people calling me a faggot.
Telling me they wish that I would die.
Horrible, disgusting stuff
That you're reading on your phone
an hour before you have to compete.
Of course it must affect you.
I took a bad crash in practice
and had like this big hematoma on my hip
and it had to get drained and I was limping around.
I made it through to the finals
and then just didn't have anything left in the tank
and couldn't put a run down in the final.
So didn't end very well.
He's competing for Great Britain,
because he wants to honor me.
I felt like in my last go of this,
I really wanted to kind of honor her
and wave the Union Jack and do it for her.
He wanted to make her proud,
and I think it's a great decision.
He says, "I've always waved the American flag
and now I can wave the Union Jack."
But there are also benefits for me doing that.
It is an easier approach to the Olympics.
He doesn't have to compete with a lot
of the other Americans to get the Olympic spot.
I would have been fighting with more people
for those four spots on the US team,
than I am for GB.
Which enables us to focus on training versus qualifying.
Basically, I know that this is going to be my last Olympics
and it would mean the world to me
to win a medal in half-pipe.
And have a medal in both the disciplines
that I grew up competing in.
I feel pretty honored, very honored in fact.
I think Gus is developing a pretty thick skin.
It's no easy feat what he's done.
Especially in our industry.
Hopefully coming out has made it easier
for someone else to do the same
and made it a more accepting, inclusive environment
for kids coming up in sports.
So that's definitely the thing I'm the most proud of.