Alex Hall has been skiing for so long he doesn’t remember the first time he rode down a hill. But the U.S. Olympian can pinpoint exactly what drew him specifically to the sport of freestyle.
“I’ve always been on skis,” Hall, 27, tells PEOPLE ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics. “I’ve always loved skiing, but specifically with freestyle skiing I really got into it when I saw some videos of my dad doing pretty much what freestyle skiing was way back in the day, before it was an official sport. It used to be called ‘hotdogging.’ “
Hall was enraptured by the old footage of his father, Marcus Hall, “hotdogging” on the snow, trying tricky maneuvers and goofing around with his friends as they pushed the limits with what could be done on a pair of skis. Watching those tapes, the Alaskan-born skier knew he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps … er, ski tracks.
“I loved watching videos of him,” says Hall, who grew up in Switzerland, where his parents were professors. “It inspired me to try freestyle and try flips and tricks on my skis, and it all just went from there. We’d love to go out together and just try new things on our own.”
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From then on Hall and his older brother Aldo, a snowboarder, could frequently be found always filming each other doing new tricks.
“My parents met skiing, so it’s definitely always been in the blood,” Hall says. “My dad’s from Salt Lake City, and so is his whole family. It’s definitely been a family tradition our whole lives.”
After spending nearly all his live in Switzerland, at 16, Hall made the decision to move back to the United States and go to a ski-specific high school in Park City, Utah, about 30 miles away from where his dad grew up.
“I knew if I made that change, I’d be taking the next step towards really trying to attain a dream like [the Olympics],” Hall says.
Hall honed his craft, becoming one of the sport’s rising stars and amassing a large social media following posting videos of himself testing out new tricks. By 2015, when he was 17, the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team had come calling. But still, Hall felt like he had work to do to reach the pinnacle of winter sports.
“The Olympics weren’t always in the picture,” Hall admits. “Maybe they just felt so farfetched that I never really dreamed too much about them in that sense. I’d say it really all settled in when I actually made my first team in 2018, competing for the US in freestyle skiing.”
Hall had made it to the Olympics, but finished 16th overall in slopestyle at the 2018 PyeongChang Games. He was determined to not just get back to the global stage in 2022, but stand on the podium.
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At the Beijing Winter Olympics that year, Hall exceeded perhaps even his own expectations with a rousing run that earned him Olympic gold, adding to an already full trophy case, alongside Hall’s 12 X Games medals, including six golds and three silvers across four different events.
“Winning a gold medal in China was an amazing memory,” Hall says. “Landing that run and doing it the way I wanted to with more of a creative approach and not necessarily following the rules – that was a very proud moment, always a fond memory.”
Hall says he’s “hyped” about jetting off to his third Olympic Games come February, noting that his Italian mother and the rest of his immediate family and friends will be there in attendance for the first time since 2018 (after sikipping the games to Covid-related restrictions in 2022).
“It’s going to be pretty sweet,” Hall says, admitting his family being there will undoubtedly add “some pressure” to his run at another podium finish.
But he knows that it all started with having fun on the slopes with his family, and that won’t ever change: “I know they’ll still like me even if I do bad!”
To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, come to people.com to check out ongoing coverage before, during and after the games. Watch the Milan Cortina Olympics and Paralympics, beginning Feb. 6, on NBC and Peacock. (edited)
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