Olympic freeski champion Nico Porteous changes career direction
Nico Porteous has won Olympic, X Games and world championship titles.
Photo:
AFP
Olympic champion Nico Porteous will never stop pushing the boundaries on the slopes, but the competitive streak has waned and he is
stepping away from freeski halfpipe in a natural career change
.
Porteous, 23, is New Zealand's most successful male snowsports athlete and one of the most decorated halfpipe athletes in history.
At times in his competitive career, he has felt the pressure of expectation, but now he skis for the fun of it.
He has Olympic, X Games and world championship titles, and World Cup medals, but in his words, he has nothing left to achieve as a competitive athlete.
"That's why I felt so free to make the decision that I have made," Porteous said. "I achieved everything that I wanted to and I'm really proud of that."
Porteous spent more than half his life chasing success on the snow.
He started as a 10-year-old, following older brother Miguel, as he chased back-to-back winters, training and competing at Breckenridge in the USA and Cardrona Alpine Resort in New Zealand, balancing sports commitments with schoolwork. A lot has changed.
"Your thinking changes, the way you look at life changes and I have followed that natural progression," Porteous said of his decision to move on from wearing silver fern on the international stage.
"In the later stages there, I just lost that competitive drive and competitive passion, and found other areas of skiing that I really enjoyed."
At 14, Porteous became the first New Zealander and youngest person in the world to land a triple cork 1440. Two years later, he was an Olympic bronze-medallist and a junior world champion.
The following season, he claimed the first World Cup medal of his career - a silver.
He then won a bronze medal at X Games Aspen and finished in second on the 2018-19 freeski halfpipe World Cup tour rankings - the best ever result at the time for a New Zealand male in the FIS Freeski rankings.
Zoe Sadowski-Synnott and Nico Porteous show off their 2018 Winter Olympics bronze medals.
Photo:
PHOTOSPORT
At the 2021 X Games Aspen, Porteous won New Zealand's first gold medal in freeski superpipe, with a run he had worked on for 18 months that contained a trick and a trick combo - a right 1620 combined with the left 1620 - that had never been landed in competition before.
He continued his success during that 2021 season to become the freeski halfpipe world champion, the first time a New Zealander had held this title.
In 2022, he won X Games freeski superpipe gold and followed that up with an freeski halfpipe gold medal at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Last year, he claimed silver at the 2024 Aspen X Games, after taking a break from competing in 2023.
Porteous' success as a teenager opened New Zealanders' eyes to what was possible from his generation of snowsports athletes, but it also took over his life.
"It takes a lot of sacrifice and a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of everything," he said. "It just consumes you and and it's all you think about 24/7.
"I definitely was feeling pressure. Everything that I do, I want to do my best at it and give it my all, and having that expectation can sometimes lead to some pretty stressful environments."
Porteous put his head down and tried to drown out the external noise.
"I think there definitely was some external pressure, but also internal pressure as well, throughout the whole time."
Another Winter Olympics was not on Porteous' mind, when he announced he was leaving competitive freeskiing eight months out from the next Games at Milan.
"It was just when I felt like it was right," he said. "It was on my own terms."
Porteous is taking note of the up-and-coming New Zealand talent that will hopefully have success similar to his.
"The success that we've seen in the past season has been crazy," he said. "All credit to those guys, they're incredible and I think it's really exciting the new era that we're coming into."
With his competitive days now behind him, Porteous said he was in good shape and was not slowing down.
From now on, Nico Porteous will move into different forms of skiing.
Photo:
PhotoSport
"I'm still pushing myself every single day and skiing at the highest level I can. There's been a couple injuries along the way, but everybody goes through injuries, and I'm lucky that I'm still young and my body feels good.
"By no means am I done pushing the limit skiing."
Over the past couple of years, Porteous has moved into a different area of skiing - one that involves showing off his skills for the camera.
"Working with videographers and producing films of me skiing, I've really enjoyed that side of skiing and it's something that, we're lucky in our sport, it can be another career path."
He has also managed and produced some events, and worked on product development with some of the sponsors he built relationships with while competing.
Porteous still spends a lot of time in skis.
"I just go skiing for fun," he said. "It's what I love to do.
"It's my passion and it's my hobby as well, just as much as it's my career.
"I go out skiing, more often than not, just for fun."
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