FIS Approves Gus Kenworthy’s Return To U.S. Ski Team

Great Britain’s Gus Kenworthy during the Men’s Freeski Halfpipe Qualification at the Livigno Snow Park, on day fourteen of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Italy.

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After competing for Great Britain at the past two Winter Olympics, four-time Olympian Gus Kenworthy is returning to the U.S. Ski Team.

Kenworthy, who won a silver medal for the United States at Sochi 2014 and competed again at Pyeongchang 2018, switched his national allegiance to Great Britain in 2019. He represented Team GB at the Beijing 2022 Games and retired shortly afterward.

Then, at 34, he came back.

Kenworthy returned to halfpipe competition last December after nearly four years away and qualified for his fourth Winter Olympics. He competed for Great Britain at Milan Cortina 2026, finishing sixth in men’s halfpipe.

“I only gave myself nine months to train after taking years off,” Kenworthy told ESPN. “And I wasn’t too far out of the mix. I thought, ‘I’m healthy and skiing well, so why would I stop?’”

The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) approved Kenworthy’s request on September 8 to switch his national affiliation back to the United States. The decision also prompted FIS to reconsider a rule that had prohibited athletes from changing national affiliation more than once. The federation stressed that Kenworthy’s situation was not an “exception or an exemption” from the rule.

According to FIS, the change is expected to be added to its rulebook following the upcoming October 1 council meeting.

Kenworthy was born in Essex, England, to a British mother and American father but moved with his family to Colorado when he was two. He became one of the world’s leading freeskiers while competing for the United States, winning Olympic silver in slopestyle in Sochi.

At Pyeongchang 2018, Kenworthy was one of the first two openly gay men to compete for Team USA at a Winter Olympics.

Kenworthy mathematically qualified for both slopestyle and halfpipe ahead of Sochi, but the final spot on the halfpipe team was given to a teammate at a coach’s discretion. Beijing 2022 marked his first Games competing in halfpipe.

After the 2026 season, Kenworthy said Team GB could not commit to funding his continued competition. Amid the uncertainty, the team said it would grant him a release if he wanted to return to the U.S. Ski Team.

However, in May 2025, FIS had adopted a provision stating that an athlete could change national affiliation only once, to prevent gaming the system by seeking the easiest path to making an Olympic team.

U.S. Ski & Snowboard and Kenworthy argued their case to FIS, noting that he wasn’t attempting to switch to a third country—which remains prohibited—to gain a competitive advantage. FIS agreed that athletes may return to their original country after at least four years and after meeting restrictive criteria.

In fact, Kenworthy has made the path harder for himself. The 34-year-old returns to a stacked U.S. men’s halfpipe team.

Of the top 10 halfpipe skiers in last season’s rankings, six were American. Four of the six qualified for the U.S. Olympic team at Milan Cortina 2026: Hunter Hess, Birk Irving, Nick Goepper and Alex Ferreira, maxing out the United States’ quota spots in the discipline. This means excellent skiers like Olympic gold medalist David Wise did not make the team.

Kenworthy will join the U.S. freeski team at a training camp in Austria in November.

“I have always known how I want to end my career: I want it to end on a landed run at the Olympics,” Kenworthy told me just ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

A competitor at heart, however, Gus Kenworthy knows that he’s got enough left in the tank to possibly take it one step further than that and bookend his Olympic career with one more medal.