U.S. Slopestyle and Oakley team rider Red Gerard has been on a pretty big media tour the past two months. After landing a podium spot at X Games, we caught up with him while he was on his layover in Chicago en route to Italy. Well, actually… we started with a FaceTime while he was in the air but the flight attendant told him to put his phone away. Catching back up in the lounge, he rattled off a few quick memories from his past Olympics as he looks forward to his third starting this week. Enjoy a trip down memory lane and tune in over the next few weeks to see if he can land back on top of the podium after winning gold in South Korea back in 2018. – Clavin
The first thing that always pops into my head when I am thinking about the Olympics is just how huge of an event and scene it is. I really had no idea how big it was going into my first one. Then you get to the venue and you are just kind of shocked that you are actually there. It just takes over a zone for a month but the infrastructure has been there for who knows how long. Once you start riding it goes back to just snowboarding but landing and going through the village the first time was psycho. Even winning it and then doing the whole media storm, I really had no idea that could happen.
It is pretty funny, but the most stressful part of the whole thing is qualifying for the games. Once you make the national team, it is kind of smooth sailing. Your “job” is over. The rest is icing on the cake. It is awesome to represent where you are from on that stage but once you make the actual team, you just focus on riding your best. Qualifiers at the actual Olympics is definitely a battle, but you train for it and then in finals you snowboard for yourself. Just let it rip and see what happens.
I have a ton of great memories just hanging with the team. At my first one, Kyle Mack and I roomed together and it was just a fun time hanging out. I guess a few of those memories went viral back then, but just having good friends that you ride with all over, staying at the same place for that window is a blast.
The Beijing Olympics during COVID were pretty insane. Being quarantined and just hoping you don’t test positive and get pulled from the contest was pretty stressful, but we all got pretty close on the team since we couldn’t really see anyone else while we were there. That part was rad. Having Hailey and Sean on the team and my brother working for the U.S. filming made it feel pretty normal at times, but no family and not really a ton of fans was a bummer. The whole team bonded and played ping-pong or whatever else in the athlete zone, but thinking about that kind of gets me pretty excited about Italy. Excited to have family back at the bottom and getting to relax and not have to take a million tests to see if I am sick.
Getting my spot for Italy last season was awesome. It was nice to be able to have a bit more of a relaxed start of the contest season this year without the added pressure of making sure I had enough points to qualify. Like I said before, the qualifying portion is honestly one of the harder parts because there are so many solid riders coming out of the U.S. Stoked for Jake and Ollie to get to their first one. Sean qualifying again is awesome. It is crazy because even the guys that didn’t end up making it like Judd, Brock, Dusty, and Luke would be such a strong team. I was just stoked to get my points early so I could focus on just getting better this season.
I guess the last thing is just family memories. It is awesome to have a huge support crew out with you. Back in 2018 it was so sick seeing my family at the bottom after a run. Really excited to have them back this year.
