Freestyle Skier Rell Harwood on Her 2026 Winter Olympics Debut
- Entertainment
ThePostMaster- 0
- 24 minutes read
I first met 24-year-old freestyle skier Rell Harwood at U.S. Ski and Snowboard’s annual fundraising gala in New York City in October of last year. We were seated together at J.Crew’s table, the official lifestyle apparel partner of the sport’s governing body. Without any context, it would be reasonable to assume that the two of us have little in common—me, a fashion editor in Manhattan with little to no mountain experience, and her, a Park City native who has been skiing since she was 3. When the evening’s host introduced Harwood to the audience and described her interests off the slopes, I quickly made the connection. Like me, Harwood likes to shop. Also like me, thrifting is her vice. When she sat down for dinner, there was plenty to discuss.
Over the course of the evening, I asked Harwood about her ski career and Olympic dreams, as well as her thrift-store adventures and the campaign she was about to film with J.Crew. The day after the gala, she joined seven other athletes on a flight to Austria to film Alpine People, a short film celebrating the debut collection for J.Crew’s three-year partnership with U.S. Ski and Snowboard, and the accompanying campaign. The Stifel U.S. Freeski Team member and X Games gold medalist was joined by Colby Stevenson, Hailey Langland, River Radamus, Tess Johnson, and Zach Miller. Everyone had their own mountain persona, Harwood’s being the Après Aficionado, “cocoa connoisseur and queen of the après-ski happy hour,” a role she both embraced with open arms and related to fully. “I got lucky,” she told me later over Zoom, a few weeks after the collaboration’s first collection dropped on January 8. “That kind of is me,” she joked. “It was perfect.”
Though the opportunity to work with J.Crew taught her a lot, lighting a fire under her to dive deeper into fashion in the future, Harwood’s top priority in the lead-up to Cortina remained the same: to qualify for her first-ever Winter Olympics. When I caught up with her in Aspen, Colorado, during the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix in mid-January, she still didn’t know if it was going to happen. She’d recently sustained an injury—something she’s already had to deal with multiple times throughout her professional career—but assured me she was going to ski through it, undeterred and ready to compete for her country. When we spoke a few days later, she excitedly shared a status update. “I just qualified for the Olympic team,” she told me. “A lot of things had to [fall] into place for [this] to happen, so I’m very, very excited.”
Already in the Milano-Cortina Games, things haven’t gone as planned, but setbacks have never stopped Harwood in the past. On the day she was meant to face her first Olympic event, she did not compete, later posting an explanation on Instagram. “I didn’t compete at the Olympics today, but my time here isn’t done,” she started, going on to share the story of how she tore her right ACL, the same injury she endured right before the 2022 Winter Olympics, just weeks before this year’s Games. “At that point, I honestly lost hope,” she continued in the post. “There was no time for surgery, and even beyond the Olympics, I was devastated to not be able to ski. I genuinely love this sport more than anything, and it completely broke my heart.” Her surgeon, though, had another option: to ski without her ACL, something that fellow Team USA skier Lindsey Vonn just did. “With guidance from my medical team, I decided to go for it,” she wrote.
In an effort to conserve her strength, she skipped slopestyle, which would have been her first event, saving everything she has for big air. “Jumps have felt better than rails, and I want to give it my all.” Qualifications for that event take place on Valentine’s Day, with the final two days later.
Before she drops in for the first time as an Olympian, get to know Harwood—on and off the mountain—below.
Let’s talk about your start—I read that you didn’t particularly like skiing in the beginning. What changed?
My parents put me on skis when I was 3, and then I got into the Learn to Race program at our mountain [in Park City] when I was 7 or so, [where they teach you about] racing fundamentals, but I never really loved it. It just didn’t do it for me. We’d always ski by the park, and I’d be like, “Hey, can we go do the little jumps?” And they’d be like, “No, no, we can’t do that here.” But eventually, my parents put me in a free ski program. My parents ski and snowboard, but they’re not super into it or anything. They didn’t even know what free skiing was, but they thought it seemed fun, like, She’ll enjoy this. They put me in with my brother, too, and I loved it. I was an adrenaline junkie from a young age. I started to actually enjoy skiing from that point on.
It makes sense that you are this creative person as well.
There’s actually so much creativity in my sport. Everyone’s trying to find a different line and different tricks on the course.
Before your relationship with skiing turned into a professional career, it was just a hobby. Can you walk me through those years and how you’ve had to change your mindset?
It’s obviously very different from when I first started. In the beginning, it was just so fun to go out with my friends and try crazy tricks. Then, I did [have to] switch to like, Okay, now I’m on the U.S. team, and I’m competing in international events. But it’s still, to me, something I love and enjoy. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it. Obviously, I have days where I’m like, Okay, this is really hard. But even recently, when I’ve had a lot of injuries [and I’m not skiing], it helps me to remember how fun it is. I love it more than anything else in the world.
You’ve experienced a lot of high highs, like your X Games debut and your gold medal there the following year, and some lows, like these injuries that you’ve been experiencing now and back in 2022. What do you do to balance out when you are experiencing those two contrasting extremes?
They’re definitely such different ends of the spectrum. When I am in those low lows, it’s important to remember the high highs [and remind myself that] I’m gonna get back to it. I have to do all these steps that I don’t necessarily want to do, but I’m gonna get back to feeling those amazing feelings again. I think having [experienced] each of the ends of the spectrum actually helps in a way.
What are some steps you took when you were injured to get yourself back into it and retain your confidence and focus?
It’s definitely hard, and it takes a lot of mental strength to push through the scarier things. But it’s a time thing too, and the more you get on snow and do the things you remember you can do and are super confident with, it slowly builds, and then you feel better. I’ve been lucky with every one of my injuries because I can block it all out. I think a lot of skiers do this; they have to block out all the scary parts and be like, This is what I’m here for. This is what we’re gonna do.
You say this is an experience a lot of skiers go through. How has being on a team, even in an individual sport like yours, helped you during those times?
It is really cool. Even though it’s an individual sport, it’s such a team sport, too. I travel with my team for more than half the year; we’re all very, very close. I’ve grown up with the girls I ski with, so having that support system is awesome. I think almost every girl on at least the pro team has [injured] their knee [like I did], so they know what it’s like—the yearlong rehab process and everything.
Then, on the other side, when it comes to the wins, can you walk through some of the highlights of your career?
One of the biggest highlights of my career was my first time coming to the X Games, which was two years ago [in 2024]. I got into Slopestyle, Big Air, and Knuckle Huck, and I was so excited just to be there—I didn’t really think anything was gonna happen or that I would podium. I ended up having an amazing time, and I got second in Knuckle Huck, third in Big Air, and fourth in Slopestyle, so I just missed the podium. I think that’s when I do my best skiing, when I’m just having so much fun, and obviously, it showed. But I was in awe—I did not expect that to happen. And then coming back the next year and winning gold in Knuckle Huck was just crazy. I grew up watching all the girls doing it from such a young age, and now, to be doing it too is still so crazy.
How do you think that skiing has shaped you into the person that you are today?
I’ve never lived a strict lifestyle, going to school and then doing the 9-to-5 thing. I’ve always been like, What else can I do? Before I even knew what [professional] skiing was, and that I could make a career out of it, it allowed me to do something different—to travel for a living. I did go to college and got a degree, but it’s nice to be able to have this experience, at least for now, to do something so completely different with it.
I want to talk a bit about fashion. How did that interest begin, particularly when it comes to secondhand shopping and thrifting?
In my sport—in slopestyle, specifically—it’s such a big thing to express yourself through your clothing choices. We go through phases and trends just like [the rest of] fashion—big, baggy clothes are in right now, [just] like in the early 2000s, when everything was really getting started [in professional snowboarding]. Some people are edgier and wear crazy belts and chains. It’s so insane and different for everyone. I guess I really started getting into it a few years ago, and I just wanted to be different. I think it relates to your tricks, too. I want to be different with my tricks and my style, and I could find a lot of that by thrifting. I’ve always loved things from the early 2000s. I do have sponsors as well, like an outerwear sponsor, so I like pairing that with things I find, mixing and matching [old with new]. I love to be creative with it, and every time I have a really cool outfit on, it makes me even more excited to ski that day.
I hear that from so many athletes, that “look good, play good” mentality.
It’s so real.
Do you make time to thrift while you travel?
Yeah, I thrifted yesterday. Sometimes in Europe, we don’t have as much time, but I’ve probably been to a thrift store in every place I’ve gone to at some point through the years.
Given your interest in fashion, what was your reaction to finding out you’d be starring in a J.Crew campaign?
I was kind of in awe. It took so long for everything to work out, so I was like, Is this gonna happen? It almost seemed too good to be true. When it finally did, I was like, What? They want me?
You definitely had the best character.
I know, I got lucky. [Après Aficionado] kind of is me. It was perfect.
Speaking of the shoot, can you walk me through that day?
It was such a great experience. I’ve been to Austria a few times, but I’ve never been to that region. I’d been in Austria for maybe two weeks before that, and we hadn’t really had much snow, but the night before the shoot, it snowed a ton. On the way up to the mountain, they had to plow the roads, a tree had fallen, and it took forever to get up there, but it was so insanely gorgeous at the top. Everyone was like, Thank God. It worked out perfectly. It was really cool too because the other athletes—I’m close with Colby Stevenson because he’s on my team—but Hailey Langland, Tess [Johnson], River [Radamus], and everyone, I don’t really know that well, because we’re all going different places and on insane schedules. So it was nice to talk with them about how our winters are going and the Olympics. And then just talking with people from all over the world, like New York, from J.Crew—everyone was so nice. All around, it was a really great experience.
Did working with J.Crew on something more fashion-focused make you any more interested in pursuing opportunities in that space?
Yes! Any opportunity that comes around like that, I would love to do.
Speaking of the future, what does the rest of your year look like?
I just qualified for the Olympic team yesterday. A lot of things had to come into place for it to happen, but I’m really excited because it’s gonna be my first Olympics.
Congratulations! How does it feel?
It’s just such a big milestone that I’ve been working toward forever. Even as a little kid, I was like, I’m gonna go to the Olympics, but back then, I didn’t really understand what it was. Then, my sport got into the Olympics in 2014, and I realized, Wait, I actually could go to the Olympics. Then I had an injury right before the 2022 Olympics, and then I got injured right before this one, and it was a complete unknown if it was going to happen or not. But it is going to happen. Right after, I’m probably going to get surgery on my knee. So, it’s a lot, but I get to go and compete for my country. My whole family’s going, so I’m really excited.
Plus, the best thrifting is in Milan.
I know. I have to go.
You have these two huge things happening. When 2026 comes to an end, what are some goals that you would like to have achieved? Or what feeling would you like to be feeling at the end of the year?
That’s such a hard one. Just going to the Olympics and trying as hard as I can, whether [that means] podiuming [or not.] As long as I do something I’m proud of—a run I’m stoked on—that’s all that matters to me. Then, going through a good rehab. Hopefully, everything goes well with that so I can get back. I would love to get back on the snow before the end of the year. I’m very far from done. This career with skiing and everything, I want to keep going for a while longer.
