Alex Hall leads first four skiers to make U.S. Olympic team for 2026 Milan Cortina Games
Hall is joined by Olympic silver medalists Alex Ferreira (halfpipe) and Jaelin Kauf (moguls), plus aerials skier Quinn Dehlinger in securing early qualification.
Each made the team as the highest-ranked American who is also ranked in the top three in the world on International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) lists.
Hall, 26, shares No. 1 on the FIS men's slopestyle list with Norwegian Birk Ruud, the 2022 Olympic big air gold medalist and two-time reigning world champion in slopestyle.
Hall has won five World Cups between big air and slopestyle since his Olympic title in 2022.
Ferreira, 30, shares No. 1 on the FIS men's halfpipe list with Finley Melville Ives, and 18-year-old from New Zealand who won the world title in March.
Ferreira won Olympic halfpipe silver in 2018 and bronze in 2022. This past season, he took second at X Games and third at the world championships, each time placing one spot behind countryman Nick Goepper.
In the 2023-24 season, Ferreira won all seven of his competitions and became the first U.S. male freestyle skier to have an undefeated World Cup campaign in an event that's on the Olympic program.
Goepper, a three-time Olympic slopestyle medalist, is ranked third on the FIS list and this upcoming season can clinch his Olympic spot in his new event of halfpipe.
Kauf, the 2022 Olympic moguls silver medalist, is coming off winning the World Cup season titles in moguls and dual moguls, plus winning the world championships title in dual moguls. She shares No. 1 on the FIS women's moguls list with 2018 Olympic gold medalist Perrine Laffont of France.
While moguls has been on the Olympic medal program since 1992, dual moguls makes its Olympic debut in 2026, giving Kauf two medal chances.
Dehlinger, 22, is tied for fourth on the FIS men's aerials list. For U.S. Olympic qualifying purposes, Dehlinger moves up one spot as Russian Maxim Burov retained his higher ranking while not being eligible to compete.
FIS has excluded all Russian skiers from competition since shortly after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Dehlinger is set to make his Olympic debut in 2026. At the last two world championships, he took gold in the mixed-gender team event and silver in the individual event behind Swiss Noe Roth.
Dehlinger hails from the same small ski area as Goepper — Perfect North Slopes in Lawrenceburg, Indiana.
Another aerials skier, 2022 Olympian Winter Vinecki, is ranked third on the FIS list but did not secure early qualification because she retained that ranking due to injury, according to U.S. Ski and Snowboard. She can still make the team — which is expected to include four total female aerialists — closer to the Games.
The four skiers join four other athletes across all sports who have made the U.S. Olympic team already — snowboarders Chloe Kim and Red Gerard and the mixed doubles curling team of Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin.
The Olympic team will ultimately include around 200 athletes.
Nick Zaccardi,
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