Gus Kenworthy. Photo: Instagram
Gus Kenworthy, the 34-year-old freestyle skiing legend announced this week that he has been officially selected to represent Team GB at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics.
This selection marks his fourth Olympic Games and completes one of the most rapid and improbable comebacks in action sports history.
The news broke via an emotional Instagram video where Kenworthy is seen receiving a call from Team GB Head Coach Pat Sharples.
“I wanted to be the first one to congratulate you for being selected… You’re the only one who could do it in that timeline,” Sharples told him. “You smashed it.”
After the 2022 Beijing Games, Kenworthy announced his retirement, citing a series of grueling concussions and a desire to focus on his acting career (notably starring in American Horror Story). However, the “retirement” didn’t stick.
Inspired by the late-career comeback of fellow skier Lindsey Vonn, Kenworthy quietly returned to training in May 2025.
Because he was coming out of retirement late in the cycle, Kenworthy revealed he had to self-fund his own travel and coaching, essentially betting on himself to make the cut.
In just a matter of weeks throughout December 2025 and early January 2026, he climbed to 9th in the world rankings following strong finishes at World Cup events in China, Copper Mountain, and Aspen.
Kenworthy, who won silver for Team USA in 2014 before switching to represent his mother’s home country of Great Britain in 2022, remains a pivotal figure for LGBTQ+ visibility.
