Hood River native Sean FitzSimons won a spot on this year’s U.S. Olympic Team for snowboarding after winning an international competition in Switzerland two weeks ago.
FitzSimons won the Laax Open on Jan. 15 in the men’s slopestyle competition. The 21-year-old 2019 Hood River Valley High School graduate will compete next week in Beijing, China.
FitzSimons is an avid snowboarder, skater, kiteboarder, and mountain biker, who made Mount Hood his second home during the winter growing up in the Gorge. He told television station KATU, “I’m like up there with a binky in my mouth at like 18 months skiing around. I would fall asleep in my boots. My boots were so big they would support me, and I’d be going down sleepin.”
He said living in Hood River has played a huge role in getting him to the Olympics. “The amount of things you can do in Hood River is honestly mind-blowing. In the summer, I’ll go up and … snowboard at Timberline, and I’ll come back down and skate, maybe go kiting, find some cool cliff jumping spot and get in the water again. It’s like and then you go mountain biking at Post Canyon.”
FitzSimons is also skilled in halfpipe and big air snowboarding events. In 2017, he entered the U.S. Rev Tour competing in all three events professionally.
The men’s slopestyle of snowboarding during the 2022 Winter Olympics is scheduled for Feb. 5 in the Genting Snow Park. Some 30 athletes are likely to compete in the event. Slopestyle riders perform tricks and jumps on a sloping course over multiple ramps and obstacles — similar to skateboard street competitions.
The competition includes two rounds, as each competitor performs two times in the qualification. The athletes with the 12 best scores (in either run) advance to the final. The finalists get another three runs, with the best two scores counting toward the final ranking.
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