LIVIGNO, Italy — Nick Goepper’s morning started with tears. Alone. In his bathroom.
He was hours from competing in his fourth Olympic Games, the Games he ruled out three years ago when he retired from professional skiing at age 28, tired and lost and unmotivated. His family all made it here this week — his mom Linda, dad Chris, brothers, sisters, new fiancée Corinn Childs — and more than anything, he was grateful. They’ve been taking full advantage, skiing in the Italian Alps every day.
“Like half of them haven’t even been to Europe before,” Goepper said. “I just think it’s a privilege to offer them the opportunity to just come and cheer.”
They cheered him Friday morning as he breezed through freeski halfpipe qualifiers and finished second. They cheered his first finals run nine hours later, then his second, which vaulted him to third on the leaderboard.
Then, they held their breath as a stunned silence swept its way across Livigno Snow Park late Friday night when Goepper’s third and final run came to a crashing halt. He slammed hard into the deck of the icy halfpipe after soaring 20 feet in the air, flipping two-and-a-half times, rotating twice and attempting to land backwards. He calls it a switch double misty 1260: It’s a trick this competition’s never seen before, and it’s one Goepper’s been honing in private for over a year, eyeing the Olympic final for his ultimate reveal.
Sitting in third, the 31-year-old Indiana native went for broke.
This was gold or nothing.
This was some serious stones.
This was everything.
Nick Goepper suffered a huge crash in his final run during the freeski halfpipe final. (Adam Pretty / Getty Images)
“Nick’s got huge b—s,” American gold medalist Alex Ferreira said an hour later. “He’s a great competitor. He’s a great teammate. For him to go for it in that moment, that took serious guts.”
The collective gasp was chilling. Chunks of the halfpipe skidded down to the bottom. Goepper lay there, motionless, for a few seconds.
Then, with the help of emergency medical personnel, he climbed to his feet. He limped off. He waved to the crowd. He smiled for the cameras. “I regret nothing,” he said. “I think we gotta go Round 5 in four years.”
Translation: Goepper’s already thinking of making a run at a fifth Olympics. He’ll be 35 when the Games arrive in the French Alps in 2030.
“He’s good,” Childs said via text message. “He’ll be sore but he’s a trooper.”
“I think he’s in some serious pain, but he’s one tough guy,” Ferreira added. “He pushed me really far.”
Nick Goepper receives medical attention after his fall. (Cameron Spencer / Getty Images)
A podium would’ve made history: Goepper would have become the first individual American athlete to medal at four consecutive Winter Olympics. Instead, a stellar final run from Canada’s Brendan Mackay bumped Goepper down to fourth.
So much has changed since the baggy-haired Hoosier, then just 19, took bronze in Sochi in 2014. Goepper got married, then divorced. He battled through a dark depression. He suffered a severe panic attack that left him hospitalized. Then, after winning his second-straight silver in the freeski slopestyle in Beijing in 2022, he wondered if something was wrong with him. For the first time in his life, he didn’t like skiing anymore.
So he didn’t ski. For a full year.
He walked away, telling his sponsors he was done, even though friends and family begged him not to.
“I had to identify as Nick Goepper, the human,” he said last fall, “not Nick Goepper, the guy plastered in logos.”
