Last February, just as they were coming off a grueling day of competition on the World Cup circuit, Chris Lillis and Quinn Dehlinger found themselves hiking up a mountain in Park City, Utah.
“Chris was hating it,” Dehlinger recalled. “He was like, ‘If this was anyone else, I wouldn't be doing this. But for them, I will.’”
The “them” in this case was Justin Schoenefeld and Ashley Caldwell, two of their teammates on the U.S. Aerials Ski Team. At the top of the mountain, about 8,500 feet above sea level, was a wedding. Schoenefeld and Caldwell had invited their closest friends and family — including a large contingent from the U.S. Aerials Ski Team — to the ceremony, and Lillis was set to serve as their officiant.
The ceremony came nearly three years to the day another monumental event forever linked this same trio together: a stunning win at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
In the years since Schoenefeld, Caldwell and Lillis won that historic gold medal — the first ever awarded at the Winter Olympics for mixed team aerials — the U.S. team has continued to forge tight-knit bonds. It’s also continued to be a strong, title-winning force.
Making history at the ‘Catalina Wine Mixer’
The Olympics’ inaugural mixed team aerials competition was held on Feb. 10, 2022. It was widely expected to be a coronation for China, the host nation, which fielded a deep roster full of elite talent.
But the Americans had their own assessment.
“We knew we were going to win — I mean, as much as anyone can know,” Lillis recalled. “We knew we had a great team. We knew we had all the pieces that we needed to go win. So we were super confident, and I think that's really important when it comes to the team events.”
Although the U.S. had seven skiers competing in individual aerials events at the Beijing Games, each country participating in the Olympic mixed team event can pick just one team consisting of three skiers (typically, two men and one woman). Schoenefeld, Caldwell and Lillis got the nod for Team USA.
The trio kept the mood light all morning, repeatedly using a famous quote from the movie “Stepbrothers” to pump each other up for the event: “It’s the [expletive] Catalina Wine Mixer!” they told each other.
The chemistry between these teammates had been forged over many years.
Lillis grew up with Schoenefeld and considers him one of his best friends. One year, while Lillis was recovering from a knee injury, he started teaching Schoenefeld how to play guitar. Nowadays, the two of them often bring their guitars when they travel to competitions and will play just about anywhere.
“In the airport, we’ve got long layovers, and we'll be sitting there, and they'll pull out their guitars and just start wailing on them,” Dehlinger said.
“It’s 50/50 whether our teammates are embarrassed or whether they like it,” Lillis added.
The verdict was more unanimous when it came to last season’s musical experiment: The duo brought a violin and tried to learn how to play it.
“We actually made some progress by the end of it, but it was slow going, for sure,” Lillis said. “It sounded like a middle school band room.”
“I can attest that it sounded like nails on a chalkboard for the two months that we were on tour,” Dehlinger confirmed.
Similarly, Lillis has known Caldwell since he was about 5 years old and says she’s “like an older sister” to him. She previously trained and competed at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics with his older brother, Jon.
By the 2022 Games, Schoenefeld and Caldwell had been dating for several years. After the mixed team event, Lillis said the experience of competing alongside the couple was “the best third wheel I’ve ever been a part of.”
Even though only one skier competes at a time, the mixed team event is very much a “team” event. Strategy can change on the fly, as skiers will adjust their planned jumps based on the scores of the teammates jumping before them, the potential tricks that teammates jumping after them are capable of doing, the scores that other countries are putting on the board, and other factors.
In Beijing, Lillis made headlines for the quintuple-twisting triple flip he landed in the final round of the competition. That trick, which was the highest-scoring single jump of the entire competition, was the result of a strategic decision.
Caldwell had taken the first jump but had trouble with the landing, so Lillis decided to go all-out in an effort to recoup those points. The gamble paid off, as the U.S. took over the lead, and Schoenefeld soon landed his final jump to bring home the win. China took silver.
New faces, same results
The Olympic victory was an upset, but it wasn’t a fluke. In the years since the last Olympics, the U.S. won back-to-back mixed team world titles in 2023 and 2025, boasting a different composition of team members each time.
Lillis has been the one constant across all three Olympic and world title-winning teams. Dehlinger, 23, has been part of both world championship teams. The latter emerged as a rising star for Team USA during this Olympic cycle. In addition to his exploits in the team event, he’s won back-to-back silver medals in the individual men’s event at the last two world championships.
Although Caldwell was again part of the team event at 2023 Worlds, she hasn’t competed on the circuit since then. In 2025, Team USA instead turned to Kaila Kuhn as the women’s selection. Just a few days after helping the U.S. capture the mixed team title, a 21-year-old Kuhn became the youngest American to ever win an individual aerials world title.
Lillis believes the group’s camaraderie has played a big role in its success with the team event.
“We have a good time out there,” he said. “I think that when you watch the team event in general, that kind of closeness is a big reason why we've had so much success.
“We're always talking about what celebrations we're going to do at the bottom, how we're going to really try and make it fun and enjoy it. And I think it does give us a little bit of a competitive edge.”
Lills and Dehlinger have become close friends during their time on the team together. After training sessions, the two would often hang out and get into in-depth discussions about aerials. Those talks inspired them to buy recording equipment and start their own podcast, “The Air Born Podcast,” where they discuss their season, take deep dives into the sport, tell stories, and bring in other athletes as guests.
As for Kuhn, she and Dehlinger first met when they were both recruited to the development team around the same time. About a year and a half ago, they started dating.
“It’s amazing having the most special person in my life be on tour with me and being able to travel to all of these crazy places together and share these wonderful experiences,” Dehlinger said during a recent appearance on the Stiffel Snow Show. “I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.”
According to Kuhn, their relationship has ultimately made her a better skier.
“He's one of my biggest support systems,” Kuhn said. “He helps me through everything. He helps me build confidence. He's a little bit better at this sport than I am, so he gives me all of his tips and tricks and how to make me better. And he's a really confident and driven person, so he's a huge influence for me as well.”
Kuhn was initially recruited to the sport by another member of the team, Winter Vinecki, who was from a neighboring town in Michigan. The two met through friends, and Vinecki encouraged Kuhn, then just 12 years old, to come to Park City to try it out.
After being recruited to the development program in Lake Placid, New York, Kuhn joined the national team at age 15 and moved to Utah. She moved in with the older Vinecki, who taught her life skills such as cooking and grocery shopping. Years later, the two women are peers competing on the biggest stages together.
“We both push each other so much,” Kuhn said of Vinecki. “We're kind of at the same place in our careers as far as what tricks we're doing, so it's always so nice having somebody up there with you, pushing you, but also really supporting you. It's a scary sport and so moving through it together, having someone to talk to about it makes it all easier and way more fun.”
You’ve got to earn it every time
Looking ahead to the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, the U.S. and China appear headed for another showdown in the mixed team event. But who will get the opportunity to compete remains, for now, partially undecided. Regardless of past results, skiers need to earn their spot each and every time there’s a team event.
Dehlinger remembers the first time he got selected. It was before the 2023 World Championships, and he received an email from U.S. Ski & Snowboard with a list of the skiers who had qualified for the individual and team events.
“I saw my name on the team event. I was like, ‘Oh, that's kind of cool,’” he recalled. “I didn't really think much of it until we actually got there.”
Once they got to Bakuriani, the significance started to sink in. U.S. head coach Vladimir Lebedev gave Dehlinger a clear objective: “I need you to land.”
“I was like, ‘Oh, alright, this is real now, I can't just not be thinking anything of it,’” he said. “Vlad definitely turned up the pressure in that first one. Ever since then, we're always eyeing [the team events] up, and we're always trying to do good in them.”
For Milan Cortina, it's expected that four men and four women will be named to the U.S. Olympic aerials team to compete in the individual events.
Caldwell won’t be part of this upcoming Olympic squad. After giving birth to her first child in July, the four-time Olympian mapped out what a potential comeback would look like, but ultimately decided the logistics of qualifying weren’t feasible. Schoenefeld likewise has not competed in any World Cup events this season.
Dehlinger was the first to qualify for the team based on his results during the 2024-25 season. Lillis, Vinecki and Kuhn recently joined the roster thanks to podium finishes during the 2025-26 World Cup season. The rest of the team will be named later in January.
Thanks to its depth, the U.S. could contend for medals across the board not just in the mixed team event, but in the men's and women's individual events as well. No American has won individual aerials gold at the Olympics since Nikki Stone and Eric Bergoust in 1998.
Vinecki is back to form after recovering from a neck injury that was nearly career-ending. At a January event in Lac-Beauport, Canada, she returned to the top of a World Cup podium for the first time in nearly two years. The next week, Kuhn continued her ascent by winning a World Cup event for the first time in her career. Kuhn and Vinecki finished 3rd and 4th, respectively, in the final standings.
Two more women will join them at the Milan Cortina Games, either as discretionary selections or via objective criteria. Kyra Dossa, Tasia Tanner and Dani Loeb all had top-five finishes this season, while Karenna Elliott is just two years removed from her first career World Cup victory.
It's a similar situation on the men's side, with two spots still to be named. Connor Curran and Derek Krueger both had top-four results this season, while Ashton Salwan posted some strong jump scores that could have him in consideration for a discretionary spot.
But while most of the focus this season has been on the success of U.S. skiers in individual events, a quiet battle has been brewing under the surface for spots in the highly-coveted Olympic team event. Based on criteria set forth by U.S. Ski & Snowboard, one man and one woman are set to be named to the team event based on the average of their three highest-scoring jumps from the current World Cup season.
At the season finale in Lake Placid, Kuhn landed her two best jumps of the campaign. Her victory was monumental for several reasons, but not to be lost in the shuffle, those jumps also raised her average score (101.27) just slightly ahead of Vinecki's (100.32).
Among U.S. men, Dehlinger had the highest average score by a significant margin to secure his spot. A second man will be named to the team event as a discretionary selection. It could once again be Lillis, who had the best single jump among all other men, but Curran, who had the better three-jump average, has a strong case as well.
No matter who’s standing at the top of the inrun for the team event in Livigno, the group will have sky-high expectations, both from fans and the team members themselves.
“We attack [the team event] different than any country in the world,” Lillis said. “We go out there expecting to win, expecting to be at the top. We don't talk about 2nd, we don't talk about 3rd. We talk about winning, and we talk about which celebration we're going to do after we win.”
“It doesn't matter who the team is,” he added, “the expectation has been set.”
As for what that celebration might consist of if the U.S. wins, Lillis says that the team already has a few ideas in the works — but successfully executing them might prove even more difficult than winning gold.
“When we do the World Cups and the world championships, it's easier to celebrate because it's a big deal and it's a lot of fun, but it's not the freaking Olympics,” Lillis said. “The thing that makes the Olympics hard to celebrate is that if we win again, I'll be losing my mind. I don't know if I'll be able to focus. I'll be tackling people and hugging and crying and all that stuff.
“We’ve got to come up with something probably a little bit more moderate so that we can make sure we can handle it.”