Alex Hall’s ski slopestyle gold medal from 2022 is as much a product of his rightside double cork 1080 pretzel 180 as it is the “Dad and Homies 1975.”
Hall, the U.S.’s lone returning individual male gold medalist from the Beijing Games, was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, but mostly raised in Switzerland. His parents were professors at the University of Zurich.
Hall followed his older brother, Aldo, into skiing. But when Aldo switched to snowboarding, Alex did, too, around age 10.
Hall rode for a year or two, but never got too serious.
“I was pretty bad," he said.
The Halls usually spent Christmas in Salt Lake City, visiting Alex’s dad’s side of the family. In what became a holiday tradition, dad Marcus busted out home movies of his own youthful freeskiing. One of them, titled “Dad and Homies 1975,” is on Alex’s YouTube channel.
“They were doing a bunch of tricks and going off jumps and pretty much doing what I do now,” Alex said. “Before it was a real disciplined event or anything, they were doing freestyle skiing. Before it was really a thing, going off natural terrain and doing 720s and backflips, real old-school style. And I remember always watching those videos thinking it just looked so fun.”
During one of those holiday viewings, back when Alex was a struggling snowboarder, one of his dad’s friends suggested he give skiing a second chance.
“One of the main things that brought me back from snowboarding to skiing was just watching those vids,” Alex said.
Around age 12 or 13, Alex entered his first ski competition at a resort near their Swiss home. Aldo did, too, in the snowboarding division.
It was a rail jam, where athletes are scored on rail tricks (which nowadays roughly is the first portion of slopestyle events).
“He (Aldo) ended up winning the (snowboard) event,” Alex said. “I ended up getting dead last (in skiing), or close to last.”
Alex was bummed, but kept skiing.
Fortune favored Hall when, a few years later and by then a more promising athlete, he applied for a spot at the Park City Winter Sports School in Utah.
The school has an April-through-November academic calendar, allowing students to train and compete in the winter. Alums include Alpine skiing gold medalists Ted Ligety and Julia Mancuso.
“It's kind of your dream if you're a 16-year-old kid who only wants to ski,” Hall said.
When Hall applied, there were no in-state spots left in enrollment. There was one out-of-state spot left (out of what Hall estimated were five total spots). Hall, then still in Switzerland, was about as out-of-state as an applicant gets.
“It's probably one of the most important things that happened to me,” he said of getting in. “I think if I hadn't gone to the U.S., to that school at that age, even if I did it a year later (instead), or I went to one of those (other) schools – Vail (Ski and Snowboard Academy in Colorado), or one of the Swiss ones – I don't think I would be the skier I am today.”
Hall went from skiing on weekends while in traditional school in Switzerland to being on the snow all winter in Park City.
“Those two seasons, I really noticed how much I progressed in my skills,” he said.
Hall made his first Olympic team at age 19 in 2018, placing 16th in slopestyle. He since won X Games slopestyle and big air titles, plus a World Cup season title in slopestyle.
In 2022, Hall won Olympic slopestyle gold with a run capped by a rightside double cork 1080 pretzel 180. He reversed the last half-rotation of the trick to earn the "pretzel" moniker. He never tried it in a competition run before those Olympics.
Hall believes his Beijing run probably would not crack the podium in Livigno. Slopestyle has progressed that much in four years.
Knowing that, he worked over the last year on potential new tricks. In an October interview, he declined to divulge details.
"In terms of being the defending champ, I don't really think about it that way," Hall said. "It's cool I got a medal four years ago, but I'm just here to ride. I'm not really thinking like I've got to defend it. There's nothing really to defend. I'm just going out to ski and have some fun."