REAL PEOPLE/MOUNTAIN PIONEER
The Dean of the Freestyle Skiers
Wayne Wong helped create a new Olympic sport—and more than 50 years later, he’s still refining it
PART OF BEING an innovator is showing up at the right time. When I first started skiing, downhill racers were the stars of the ski industry. Then suddenly, in the late 1960s, all these radical, rebellious, unorthodox guys started doing what came to be called “freestyle”: catching air by skiing the moguls or doing big aerial jumps. You didn’t have to be an elite Alpine skier to do some of these tricks. It was a new way to express yourself on the snow. And I was all in. I started inventing my own moves and showing them off.
At the first national championships of exhibition skiing in New Hampshire in 1971, I took third place. The following year, I took first and was named “Freestyle Skier of the Year” by Skiing magazine. It’s a legacy that I’m still working to live up to. Maybe I can’t do it like I did when I was 20, but I feel like I’m still skiing like I did when I was 40. I’m very fortunate that way. And I work on my fitness—that’s a big part of it.
Freestyle skiing is creative, interpretive. We experiment with dance and gymnastic-like movements. It’s a lot more than just getting from point A at the top of the mountain to point B at the bottom.
Being inducted into the U.S. and Canadian ski halls of fame was an amazing honor. But to me, the coolest thing—which just blows my mind—is that I got hired by Deer Valley in Park City, Utah, to become their newest sponsored athlete, at 74. Who gets a gig like that?
I act as sort of a goodwill ambassador on the slopes. I help people have fun. A large part of skiing is the companionship, the friendships you make, sharing stories as you’re riding the lifts. You have a captive audience to share laughter, to share fun times.
But it’s not all social. Every time I get out on the hill, I challenge myself. I try to do things a little better than I did the day before. I want to be a better technical skier, a more efficient skier, and pass that on to my peers.
Even as you get older, you can always improve. That’s the mystique of skiing. I would encourage people, when they’re on the hill, to look for that little spark of inspiration, that impetus to try something new. Experience the mountain, experience the snow, experience the terrain, because skiing is all about feelings.
Salt Lake City was chosen as the site of the 2034 Winter Olympics, and Deer Valley will be the venue for the freestyle events. My goal now is to stay active and be part of this whole movement at least through then. —As told to Brion O’Connor
Wayne Wong, 75, one of Ski magazine’s “Top 100 Skiers of All Time,” lives near Reno, Nevada.