Freestyle skier Quinn Dehlinger punched his Olympic ticket eight months before most of his fellow 2026 Olympians. Dehlinger found out last June that he’d earned a spot in the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. It was a huge relief after he barely missed out on making the 2022 Beijing Team. It was a game-changer, mentally, heading into World Cup races this season.”Going into the competitions this year, if I got sick or had a minor injury, it lifted a little of the weight off the shoulders,” Dehlinger said. Dehlinger lives in Park City, Utah, where aerial skiers train year-round at the Utah Olympic Park. But he grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, skiing at Perfect North Slopes.It’s a far cry from the mountains out west. But it’s become a pipeline for aerial athletes. In fact, four skiers on the national team are from the Cincinnati area.Top aerial skiers spend their summers in Park City training at the Spence Eccles Olympic Freestyle Pool. The pool is aerated. Skiers go off plastic jumps similar to a regular ski jump. The aerated water provides a soft, safe landing and pushes skiers to the surface. The only hitch? Skiers have to hike more than 100 stairs to get to the top of the ramp.Aerialists are often called acrobats on skis. They rely on strength, flexibility and visualization techniques.”When you’re going down that jump at 45 miles an hour, and it’s 14 feet tall and 71 degrees, it looks like a wall of ice,” Dehlinger said. “You’re visualizing dropping your arms in a specific spot so that it either speeds up your twist or stops your twist, or helps you slow down your flip, or just controls everything.”Dehlinger said fans often get one thing wrong about his sport.”The biggest misconception is that we just don’t get scared. We do get scared, but we just deal with a different way. We just push it down and do what we need to do,” Dehlinger said. And what Dehlinger needs to do now is get to the top of the ramp at Milan-Cortina. He’s already visualizing gold and ready to find out if he’s got what it takes. The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games start Feb. 6.
Freestyle skier Quinn Dehlinger punched his Olympic ticket eight months before most of his fellow 2026 Olympians.
Dehlinger found out last June that he’d earned a spot in the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. It was a huge relief after he barely missed out on making the 2022 Beijing Team.
It was a game-changer, mentally, heading into World Cup races this season.
“Going into the competitions this year, if I got sick or had a minor injury, it lifted a little of the weight off the shoulders,” Dehlinger said.
Dehlinger lives in Park City, Utah, where aerial skiers train year-round at the Utah Olympic Park. But he grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, skiing at Perfect North Slopes.
It’s a far cry from the mountains out west. But it’s become a pipeline for aerial athletes. In fact, four skiers on the national team are from the Cincinnati area.
Top aerial skiers spend their summers in Park City training at the Spence Eccles Olympic Freestyle Pool. The pool is aerated. Skiers go off plastic jumps similar to a regular ski jump. The aerated water provides a soft, safe landing and pushes skiers to the surface.
The only hitch? Skiers have to hike more than 100 stairs to get to the top of the ramp.
Aerialists are often called acrobats on skis. They rely on strength, flexibility and visualization techniques.
“When you’re going down that jump at 45 miles an hour, and it’s 14 feet tall and 71 degrees, it looks like a wall of ice,” Dehlinger said. “You’re visualizing dropping your arms in a specific spot so that it either speeds up your twist or stops your twist, or helps you slow down your flip, or just controls everything.”
Dehlinger said fans often get one thing wrong about his sport.
“The biggest misconception is that we just don’t get scared. We do get scared, but we just deal with a different way. We just push it down and do what we need to do,” Dehlinger said.
And what Dehlinger needs to do now is get to the top of the ramp at Milan-Cortina. He’s already visualizing gold and ready to find out if he’s got what it takes.
The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games start Feb. 6.