The countdown to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea is on! Telluridians are especially excited as three athletes- Gus Kenworthy, Keaton McCargo and Hagen Kearney- who grew up in Telluride are on the Olympic team.

Unless you live in a town with a ski resort in your backyard, it is not the norm to put on a pair of skis and hit the slopes for PE. Fortunately for Gus, Keaton, and Hagen, Ski PE was a normal part of life which laid a solid foundation to excel on the snow. Add to that countless hours training with the Telluride Ski & Snowboard Club, a tremendous amount of hard work, perseverance and dedication and their Olympic dreams became a reality.

Gus, Telluride’s first Olympian, won silver in Slopestyle in Sochi in 2014  and since then has consistently been in the top 10 of the World Cup Standings for both Slopestyle and Halfpipe events. He took silver in Slopestyle at the 2017 World Championships. Now 26 years old, Gus returns to the 2018 Olympics to go after another podium finish in Slopestyle.

Friends and family of Gus recall him as a young skier in the terrain park below Lift 4. There was nothing he couldn’t slide on, spin off or jump over. Gus has certainly come a long way since the days of playing around in this small terrain park. Telluride couldn’t be more proud and look forward to seeing Gus fly high in South Korea along with fellow Telluridians Keaton McCargo and Hagen Kearney.

Keaton qualified to ski in PyeongChang with the Freestyle team in the Moguls event. She has a host of top ten World Cup finishes under her belt (including a podium), a Moguls national title, and finished 2017 sixth in the world. Keaton is 22.

Hagen qualified to compete in Snowboardcross in next month’s Olympic games, beating out lots of veteran riders to earn his spot. He finished seventh in the World Championships in 2017 and was fifth in last year’s World Cup standings. Hagen is 26.

These 3 athletes have accomplished so much since their ski PE days. The entire town of Telluride will be in PyeongChang in spirit, cheering their hearts out.