2026 Winter Olympics: Gus Kenworthy takes ICE death threats ‘with a grain of salt’

Kenworthy, 34, was born in Chelmsford but grew up in the US and won a silver medal in downhill skiing at the 2014 Sochi Games, before switching allegiance to Team GB in 2019.

He retired after the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, but announced his return last year, although he had to self-fund himself to get to the Games as GB Snowsport’s sporting funding had already been allocated.

He qualified in ninth place for tonight’s half-pipe final, which starts at 18:30 GMT, with 81.25 points.

“I stopped it partly because I had been doing it for so long and I was suffering from fatigue and I overcame it, but I was also suffering from some serious head injuries, so it was easier to stay away,” the five-time world championship medalist said.

“Months later, when those symptoms started to subside and I started to feel like myself again, I started to wonder that this wasn’t the way I wanted things to end.

“I kept pushing that feeling away, and finally I got to a point where I said, ‘Okay, if you have this feeling, it’s now or never,’ and I didn’t want to live to regret it and wonder what if.”

“I decided to just give it a go and get it done, and try to get there. It was very difficult, because I had no funding, and I wasn’t in any national team for help, so it was completely self-funded, me and my coach, all of our travel, training camps, boarding passes, insurance, all that, food, accommodation.

“I had a hard time deciding if this was the right thing to do, but at the end of the day, money comes and goes, and this opportunity won’t go away.”