At 20, Cole Richardson has a bag of tricks like no skier you’ve ever seen – gleaned from a youth competing as a gymnast, ski racer and slopestyle and halfpipe skier. Raised on skis from the age of 2, by ski-racing parents, his athleticism chafed only where his creativity was restrained. “I loved doing the flips in gymnastics, less that I had to point my toes. I loved the discipline. I didn’t like that I was forced to move a certain way.” Taking his technical grounding, passion for style and pure love for skiing into the mountains, has given him the freedom to express himself his own way, and inject a mind-blowing dynamism and air-mastery into freeskiing. “I want to be the best skier I possibly can. I’m lucky to know exactly what my passion is.” Each discipline he pursued was to intentionally build a base as an all-around skier. Winning the 2019 Quiksilver Young Guns contest, after being hand-plucked from 1000 video entries, set his career in ski filming in motion – a goal he’d set his sights squarely on. Richardson’s goal-setting has always been smart and specific, and he’s already ticked off one of the longest-standing ambitions, filming his first segment in a Matchstick Productions film, which drops in fall 2021. His vision is to create a platform through skiing to express his style, make his mark, and venture into unexpected terrain. With his adeptness at crossing over from one discipline to another, to craft a signature style out of different influences, Richardson has no plans to restrict his expressiveness just to skiing. After all, everything is possible when you just set goals and work towards them.

Achievements

• MSP film (2021)
• Tales from Cascadia from Blank Collective (2021)
• Produced and edited 9ineteen (2020)
• Winner of the Quiksilver Young Guns competition (2019)
• 1st Whistler, NORAM Championships (2016)
• IFSA Overall North American Champion, Winner (2016)