FIS Crystal Globe series: The Valentino Guseli interview
Published Tue 18 Jul 2023
Valentino Guseli (AUS) at the Bakuriani 2023 World Championships © Miha Matavz/@mihamatavz
Article and Images courtesy www.fisski.com
Maybe it's time to just start referring to it as The Season, because at some point along the way we ran out of superlatives to describe what 18-year-old Australian Valentino Guseli achieved in 2022/23. But before we get into our recent interview with the young man who climbed to the top of the pyramid to become the world's best all-around competition snowboarder, we'd like to present a partial list of Val's accomplishments through six months of competition this past season:
- Big air and Snowboard Park & Pipe overall crystal globes winner
- Bakuriani 2023 World Championships halfpipe silver
- First rider ever to podium in big air, slopestyle and halfpipe World Cup in one season
- First rider to finish top three overall in big air, slopestyle and halfpipe World Cup in one season
- Most Park & Pipe World Cup points in a single season
- Most Park & Pipe World Cup starts in one season
It's a dizzying list, as Val collected a set of highlights in one short season the likes of which most riders will be lucky to achieve even one of in their entire careers.
However, if you were around Valentino Guseli day-in and day-out over the course of the 2022/23 season, what you might really remember were the little moments, where the things that make him so special as a both a snowboarder and human being stood out. Images of him dropping in for the first test run on the Edmonton Style Experience big air jump without knowing the speed, taking one of the hardest knuckle hits you're likley to witness, only to pick himself up and jog straight back up the stairs to the top of the stadium for his next run.
And then jogging up those stairs again and again and again over the course of the week, squeezing more hits out of his training sessions than any other rider, and eventually going on to claim his first career World Cup win when the curtain finally came down on the event.
Then there were the hours spent hanging around the finish area, signing autographs and posing for photos with any and everyone who approached him. And the time he would take out of his day to thank course workers and volunteers for their efforts whenever he got the chance. And the way he would take disappointing results as learning experiences and come back harder the next event, or the way he would accept his successes humbly, knowing his end goal is bigger than any single podium on any given comp day.
Speaking of humble, when we first rang Val for this interview he was just wrapping up a day helping his dad with the family business, building concrete pools around Melbourne. The cell service was spotty from car ride home out in the "Australian wilderness," as Val himself described it, and our call got cut off a few times.
Later in the day we were able to reach the busiest man in snowboarding on a solid connection at home, where we talked Olympic-sized goals, coming back from two nearly-broken ankles to win World Champs silver, and why everyone should ride halfpipe, big air and slope - even if it makes Val's reign as the world's best all-terrain destroyer more difficult.
