Freeride Skiing Joins 2030 Winter Olympics, Boosting Colorado Athlete Careers

“This is such a good thing for so many up-and-coming athletes who want to make a career in freeride skiing,” Kelly Hilleke said, her voice carrying the steady confidence of someone who has spent years navigating steep, unforgiving slopes. “This will allow a lot more people to dedicate themselves to the sport and really push the sport to new levels.”

Hilleke, a Glenwood Springs resident who debuted on the Freeride World Tour last year and currently coaches at the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club, is among those celebrating the International Olympic Committee’s decision this week to include freeride skiing and snowboarding in the 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps. The vote, cast by officials in Switzerland, marks a pivotal moment for a discipline that has spent three decades operating largely outside the traditional Olympic framework. If this debut goes smoothly, as many hope it will, freeride is set to return for the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, bringing big-mountain culture back to Colorado soil.

The Freeride World Tour has been shaping the landscape of competitive skiing and snowboarding for 30 years, evolving from the momentum of the first U.S. Extreme Skiing Championships in Crested Butte during the 1990s. It was born from a desire to ski terrain long considered impossible, rippling down treacherous couloirs and cliff faces in a style that prioritizes line choice, control, fluidity, and style over pure speed. Today, more than 50 of the world’s top male and female athletes travel to six contest locations globally, scoring points based on their technical execution in daunting terrain. The circuit hosts over 300 competitions across four continents, serving as a pipeline to push young skiers into these elite-level events.

The path to the Olympics has been long and winding. The International Federation of Skiing, or FIS, acquired the Freeride World Tour in 2022 and officially recognized freeride as a discipline in 2024. The FIS president noted at the time that it was “only natural for us to fully embrace the excitement of a rising discipline like freeride.” That recognition culminated in February, when the tour hosted the first-ever FIS Freeride World Championships in the Pyrenees of Andorra, with the United States taking home the most medals.

Locals like Edwards skier Joey Leonardo are already feeling the shift. Leonardo finished his first year on the Freeride World Tour in ninth place, highlighted by a second-place finish at the Val Thorens resort in France. For athletes like Leonardo and Hilleke, who recently competed in the tour’s first stop of 2026 at the legendary Tuc de Bacivèr face in Spain’s Val d’Aran region, this Olympic inclusion validates years of grinding through remote locations and harsh conditions.

There’s a warmth to the community that has formed around these competitions, a sense of shared purpose among athletes who spend their winters chasing the perfect line down a mountain. It’s not just about medals anymore; it’s about sustainability, about being able to look at a career in freeride and see a future that extends beyond sponsorships and personal passion. The rough edges of the sport — the risk, the travel, the financial burden — remain, but now there’s a structure to support them.

You can feel it in the way Hilleke describes the opportunity for “up-and-coming athletes.” It’s not just about glory; it’s about making a living doing what you love. The vote in Switzerland didn’t just change a schedule; it changed the economics of passion for folks around here.

The snow on Tuc de Bacivèr catches the morning light, turning the face into a shimmering sheet of white and blue, waiting for the next skier to carve their name into it.