Discipline: Ski Slopestyle

Olympic Participation: Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018

The Sydney-born athlete was an accomplished alpine skier, with numerous national slalom titles to his name, before he switched to freestyle skiing and joined the international circuit at the age of 15. In the 2010/11 season, he made a name for himself when he grabbed slopestyle silver at the X Games in Aspen and bronze in the World Championships in Park City, USA. His season ended with a torn ACL in 2011, and in order to speed up his recovery, his father donated part of his hamstring.

He received his first world cup podium result in 2013 with a silver medal in Copper Mountain, USA. He followed this up with two bronze medals during the next World Cup season.

Russ was Australia's only male competitor in Ski Slopestyle when the sport made its Olympic debut at the Sochi 2014 Games. At 23 years of age, Russ entered the Games under an injury cloud but easily qualified for the final. In his first run of the finals, Russ fell off the top rail and drifted offline on the second last jump. Despite the mix up, the run was clean, giving him his top score of 80.40, which saw him finish in eighth place.

Russ says of his Olympic experience “It was definitely a challenging experience to say the least. I had torn my right ACL just over a year out from the Olympics and decided to try and ski without an ACL so that I didn’t have to take any time off from skiing, and so I was able to work on tricks I needed for the event. I ended up having a crash a week out from the Olympics and I tore my left ACL as well.

As you can imagine it was a pretty stressful time for me. In saying all of that it was a blast and I am so grateful I was able to represent my country and show the world what freesking is”.

Russ won World Championships silver the following year in Kreischberg, Austria. In the 2016/17 season, Russ won bronze at the Seiser Alm World Cup in Italy in January 2017. He contested three World Cup events during the season, placing in the top 20 in all events before heading to Sierra Nevada for the World Championships. Russ saved his best run for last in Spain, scoring 81.80 in his final run for an impressive eighth place finish.

One month out from his second Olympic Games, Russ injured his knee and put his PyeongChang dreams into jeopardy. However, he received medical clearance just in time to compete in Korea, and was stoked just to make it to the start line. Russ put down two clean runs of 72.60 and 64.00 at PyeongChang in the qualifiers to finish 19th overall.