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Gus KenworthyAmerican freestyle skier
Date of Birth: 01.10.1991
Country:  USA |
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Biography of Gus Kenworthy
Gus Kenworthy is an American freestyle skier who is widely regarded as one of the most outstanding freestylers in the world. He has been crowned world champion three times in a row and has won a silver medal at the Olympics. Sports journalists highly value his abilities, and the mainstream press began to talk about Kenworthy mainly after the Sochi Olympics when he took in five homeless dogs from Sochi.
Early Life
Gus Kenworthy was born and raised in Telluride, Colorado. He specializes in slopestyle and halfpipe skiing. He is the youngest of three children, born to an English mother and an American father. Kenworthy's father, Peter Kenworthy, has been the executive director of the 'Mountainfilm' film festival in Telluride since 2006. He used to work as a banker in Philadelphia and London. Kenworthy's mother, Pip, is originally from Bristol and moved to London in the early 70s. She worked as a costume assistant at the 'Kings Head Theatre Club' and also traded in the 'Camden Lock Market'. The Kenworthy family moved to the United States in 1993, along with Gus and his two older brothers. They settled in Telluride.
Education and Skiing Career
Gus Kenworthy completed high school in June 2010. Although his formal education was supposed to end in 2009, he skipped a year to pursue skiing. Kenworthy has achieved three victories in the overall standings at the AFP World Championships in 2011, 2012, and 2013. He won two gold medals at the New Zealand Winter Games in 2011, in slopestyle and halfpipe. In 2013, Kenworthy took second place at the World Cup in Sochi and won his first medal, a bronze, at the X Games in Tignes, France, in slopestyle. Kenworthy was sponsored by 'Nike' and 'Atomic Skis'.
Olympic Success and Dog Rescue
In 2014, Gus Kenworthy won a silver medal in slopestyle at the Sochi Olympics. He was only surpassed by his fellow American, Joss Christensen. Interestingly, all three medals in this discipline went to Americans, with Nick Goepper joining Christensen and Kenworthy on the podium. However, Kenworthy's popularity skyrocketed not because of his brilliant performance at the Olympics but because of his act of rescuing five stray dogs in Sochi. Kenworthy's friend, photographer Robin Macdonald, discovered the mother dog and her four puppies during his stay in Sochi. Kenworthy and Macdonald decided to bring all five dogs back to the United States. While it is difficult to quantify the impact of this action, it did help the five dogs and drew attention to the issue of stray dogs in Sochi.
The stray dog problem in Sochi became a serious issue during the Olympics, and there were calls for immediate action. It is believed that the increase in the stray dog population was caused by workers on Olympic construction sites who initially fed the dogs and used them as free guards, but later drove them away. Kenworthy admitted that it was difficult for him to see the suffering of the stray dogs in Sochi, as he has spent a significant part of his life surrounded by animals and cannot tolerate their suffering.
Kenworthy's actions led to a wave of dog adoptions, increased volunteer activity, and a recognition that something needed to be done about the stray dog problem in Sochi.
