Teenage snowboard star Valentino Guseli targets triple success at 2026 Winter Olympics

It was late March when Australian teenager Valentino Guseli’s telephone buzzed.

It is the morning of the ultimate spherical of the FIS Snowboard World Cup in Silvapalana, Switzerland.

Guseli is within the combine and on the hunt for a 3rd Crystal Globe — the trophy awarded to the athlete with the very best outcomes from the annual World Cup sequence.

The then-18-year-old was sitting in second place within the total park and pipe World Cup standings — a mixed championship tallying up the triad of snowboard freestyle disciples: half-pipe, slopestyle and large air — behind Japanese rider Ryoma Kimata.

Regardless of being in competition, the defending total champion and slopestyle winner from 2022/23 had loved, in his personal phrases, not fairly the season he needed.

“I discovered the season earlier than final was higher,” Guseli tells ABC Sport.

“I felt like I did fall off a bit of bit final season.”

The yr prior, Guseli turned the primary man to win World Cup medals in all three disciplines in a single season and simply the fourth ever to take action over the course of his profession, and in addition received his first World Championships medal in Bakuriani, Georgia.

Maybe, on condition that success 12 months prior, it’s cheap to name it a little bit of a dip.

With all this spinning by means of Guseli’s thoughts, the affable teen turned his consideration again to his telephone.

On the display screen was a considerably incongruous scene: Two Crystal Globe trophies perched on a handrail, with the gorgeous vista of autumn waves crashing onto craggy headlands and a slither of pristine seashore — typical of the south coast of New South Wales — within the background.

“They’re ready for one more one,” the accompanying message, from Guseli’s father Ric, learn.

It was all the inducement Guseli wanted.

Olympics triple the plan

It is fairly clear that Guseli isn’t your normal teenager. He is one of many best snowboarding prospects on the planet.

He mentioned his 2023/24 season was not fairly the place he needed it to be, but it nonetheless contained loads of excessive factors.

A 1-2 end with fellow Australian Scotty James on the Laax half-pipe was one.

Successful a first-ever half-pipe World Cup gold in Calgary was one other.

And profitable a 3rd Crystal Globe was a 3rd, which marries properly with Guseli’s ambitions for the following 18 months, when he hopes to make historical past in Milan-Cortina.

Guseli’s profession remains to be fledgling — he has began simply 32 World Cup occasions, incomes 9 podiums.

However even earlier than he made his debut on the Winter Olympics aged simply 16, Guseli has been described as one to observe.

At these Video games, he blended it with a number of the all-time greats on the Secret Backyard half-pipe in Zhangjiakou, ending in a massively credible sixth spot behind Australia’s silver medallist Scotty James and America’s Shaun White.

His first World Cup victory got here later in 2022, profitable the Edmonton massive air.

Guseli honed his nascent snowboarding abilities whereas rising up in Canberra — getting out on a skateboard within the metropolis when he wasn’t hitting the slopes.

Now he calls Dalmeny, on the south coast of NSW, dwelling, the place he has additionally proven an affinity for browsing.

Journeys dwelling are more and more fleeting although, transient interludes between traipsing across the mountains of the northern hemisphere, carving by means of powder-like snow and pushing the bounds of what’s potential on a board.

Partly, in fact, that’s right down to an more and more troubled snow season in Australia, with a second-successive winter of disappointing snow throughout alpine areas. 

Guseli, like many riders of his era, is worried in regards to the warming of the planet, and is an envoy for Defend our Winters, a non-profit highlighting the affect of local weather change.

“It is not what you need,” Guseli says.

“The Aussie season is all the time fairly enjoyable, however this yr we had the worst season I feel ever recorded.

“We nonetheless had numerous enjoyable shredding there, I simply attempt to profit from it.

“It is undoubtedly one thing that is essential to me.

“This season we had the worst season that we have had in a very long time, after which the season earlier than was fairly unhealthy too, and I simply, like … it could suck to see seasons hold going on this course.”

Whereas the environmental impacts on snow sports activities will stay a problem, of extra rapid concern for Guseli is the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Video games of 2026, which loom massive on the horizon.

The qualification window for the 2026 Video games begins this season, with the snowboard World Cup kicking off on the scaffold metropolis ramp at Massive Air Chur on Saturday night time in Switzerland — the fruits of a two-day social gathering the place the snowboarders vie for consideration with DJ units and reside performances from a few of Europe’s finest bands.

With Olympic qualification spots on the road although, each occasion carries an elevated stage of significance, significantly given Guseli has set himself a unprecedented job.

“I’m aiming to qualify in all three disciplines that I do; slopestyle, half-pipe and large air,” Guseli says with calm confidence.

“I am unsure if anybody else is aiming for that this season, however that is what I am planning on doing.”

Competing at a excessive stage throughout all three disciplines is awfully troublesome, making the feats of US-born Chinese language freestyle skier Eileen Gu all of the extra spectacular when she medalled in all three occasions at her dwelling Video games in 2022.

Solely Korea’s Lee Chaeun is a sensible likelihood to shoot for all three occasions in 2026.

Lee was the one snowboarder youthful than Guseli to compete on the 2022 Video games, ending 18th and lacking the ultimate as a 15-year-old.

The Korean star has since been topped world champion within the half-pipe — edging Guseli into second place by simply 0.5 factors — and can hope to defend that title when the World Championships return in Engadin and St. Moritz in 2025.

He additionally received two golds on the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics in Gangwon, in half-pipe and slopestyle.

The competitors is rising.

However then once more, so is Guseli.

“Hopefully, I will simply do my finest, profitable as soon as I get there to the Olympics and get some gold medals,” he says.

“That is the plan.”

Good issues are available threes

With Kimata lacking the finals in Silvapalana, and Guseli ending third, the precocious teenager did add a 3rd Crystal Globe to his assortment on the finish of final season.

Guseli’s ascent to the very best echelons of the game continued apace.

It is fairly apparent that athletes like him don’t come round all that always.

However the complete motive Guseli is a triple-threat rider is down, in some small half no less than, to his father Ric’s insistence that his son be allowed to check himself throughout all three codecs for so long as potential.

With out having met him, Ric comes throughout as a fairly astute man.

It is not simply due to his prescient prediction of the addition of one other trophy to the household’s coast-side assortment, however the ethos he has instilled in Valentino.

“My dad helped me come to this conclusion that it is all snowboarding,” Guseli says.

“You understand, individuals specialise and folks select only one to concentrate on, however they [the separate disciplines] do all type of assist one another.

“Plenty of individuals advised us that I ought to specialise once I was youthful and my dad was identical to, ‘No hold doing all the things,’ and at instances I needed to take heed to these different individuals over my dad, I used to be fairly younger, I used to be like 10, 12 [years old].

“However then I realised the benefit I had over plenty of my competitors.

“I get extra good ends in half-pipe than the opposite two, adopted by slopestyle after which massive air. 

“However I feel I am greater than maintaining [with the rest of the field] and, after a bit of bit extra coaching time, I will hold maintaining by means of the season.”

‘I wanna win a crap-tonne extra’

Speaking with Guseli by video from his coaching base in Switzerland, it is laborious to shake off a really distinct impression: {The teenager} that you’re speaking to is desperately cool.

Along with his broad, ever-present and straightforward smile, Guseli exudes a relaxed composure suggestive of a laid-back perspective that, if it have been any extra pronounced, would depart him nearly horizontal.

However behind that laconic manner is similar steely resolve that binds all high athletes: A thirst for victory.

“My plan is to get to the extent the place I can simply persistently win,” Guseli says, an assertive assertion considerably at odds with its calm supply.

“I’ve solely received two World Cups to date [Edmonton big air 2022 and Calgary half-pipe last season], and I’ve had just a few extra podiums.

Guseli says a typical day sees him “go shred so long as I can,” spending hours up within the snow earlier than hitting the health club and incorporating over an hour of yoga into his day by day routine.

“It requires numerous laborious work, however the course of is tremendous enjoyable, and you’ve got gotta benefit from the course of,” he says.

“You will be working laborious, however you are simply hanging out along with your mates, ripping. 

“So it is like, tremendous enjoyable and a bit extra chill on the similar time.”

Guseli’s versatility, and deep-seated sense of enjoyment on the snow, undoubtedly assist him push boundaries.

Whether or not it is taking learnings from the slopestyle into his half-pipe performances, or the dare-devil confidence crucial for fulfillment in massive air, Guseli’s innate want to push the boundaries makes him such an exhilarating snowboarder to observe and such scorching property for sponsors.

Earlier this yr he launched himself 11.53 metres into the air off a purpose-built hip — a world report — and holds the report of seven.3 metres off the aspect of a half-pipe.

It’s disputed that Kaishu Hirano went increased on the 2022 Olympics, though there may be some query over the truth that the Japanese rider’s transponder was hooked up to his knee, and never the board, as was the case when Guseli set his mark in 2021 on the Laax Open.

He additionally turned the primary board rider to finish a front-side 1620 in a half-pipe.

“I’ve discovered a lot since I did my first World Cup,” he says.

“Now I am simply engaged on some methods which are a bit of bit extra progressive and distinctive, which I feel will certainly assist me to persistently do fairly effectively.

“It is fairly cool as a result of there’s plenty of new methods of doing stuff popping out.

“There’s solely a lot you’ll be able to rotate within the trick in an quantity of airtime, so it type of slows down a bit of bit because it will get to a little bit of a ceiling there.

“However then individuals are bringing in completely totally different axes of rotation, so there’s heaps of issues popping out that individuals have not executed nonetheless. So it is fairly cool.

“I am simply doing no matter I can to be pretty much as good as I can, compete effectively and hit podiums and win.”