For years, Brendan and Stephanie Irving would haul their daughter Svea to halfpipe contests across the country to watch her older brother compete.
“Svea just loved skiing, and at all these events for Birk she would say ‘We should be out skiing,’” Brendan says. “Eventually she said, ‘Maybe I should be doing this too.’”
Last month Birk, 26, and Svea, 23, were named to the U.S. Ski Team’s Olympic halfpipe roster. The Milano Cortina Winter Games will be Birk’s second and Svea’s first Olympics.
The siblings have been skiing halfpipe together for more than a decade, traveling the world and honing acrobatic skills and style that make them contenders for Olympic medals.
“They talk a lot during competitions,” says Brendan, the ski patrol supervisor at Winter Park resort who years ago helped his kids build jumps and rails in their snowy backyard. “When Svea skis down the pipe, Birk makes a point of walking over and giving insight. They are a tight team.”
The Irving siblings are among 27 Colorado athletes out of 97 total skiers and snowboarders heading to Italy with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team to compete in the Milan Cortina Winter Games, which start Feb. 6. There are five more Colorado athletes on the U.S. Olympic figure skating, biathlon, bobsled and ski mountaineering teams. At least 33 athletes from Colorado — plus one alternate — are the most from any state represented among the 232-athlete American roster competing in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Charlie Mickel, a 21-year-old moguls skier who grew up skiing Purgatory and kayaking in the Animas River near his home in Durango, will compete in the Olympic debut of dual moguls. The sport features two skiers racing down the moguls course in a head-to-head format that weighs time, turns and air.
Mickel expects viewers will like the side-by-side racing.
“It’s going to showcase a really awesome side of our sport,” said Mickel. “We’ll have some big crashes in a format that shakes things up a little bit.”
Where skiers in single moguls spring off jumps to float lofty airs that impress the judges, dual moguls skiers are focused on crossing the finish line first. That means “absorbing as much as you can and having a flat trajectory” on jumps, Mickel said.
Mickel, who remembers an inspiring spark watching the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia, has spent two years competing on the World Cup circuit. He learned to ski at Purgatory and spends his summers kayaking around Durango, where his parents founded the venerable Mild To Wild adventure whitewater company offering tours in Colorado, Utah and Arizona.
“I grew up skiing with an older group of kids. And I’ve been kayaking all my life too,” he said. “Having these outdoor activities right outside our door has really helped me.”
>> Here’s a list of Colorado athletes to watch in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. Click here to find NBC streaming and broadcast options.
And don’t miss a couple-few fun facts to stir Olympic conversation below this list.
Women: 3 of 11
- Nina O’Brien, Denver, 28. Competed in 2022 Winter Games.
- Mikaela Shiffrin, Eagle-Vail, 30. Competed in 2014, 2018, 2022 Winter Games.
- Lindsey Vonn, Vail, 41. Competed in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2018 Winter Games.
Men: 2 of 6
- Kyle Negomir, Littleton, 27. First Olympics.
- River Radamus, Edwards, 27. Competed in 2022 Winter Games.
U.S. Olympic Cross Country Team
Women: 2 of 8
- Lauren Jortberg, Boulder, 28. First Olympics.
- Hailey Swirbul, El Jebel, 27. Competed in 2022 Winter Games.
U.S. Olympic Freeski Halfpipe Team
Women: 2 of 4
- Svea Irving, Winter Park, 23. First Olympics.
- Riley Jacobs, Oak Creek, 22. First Olympics.
Men: 2 of 4
- Alex Ferreira, Aspen, 31. Competed in 2018, 2022 Winter Games.
- Birk Irving, Winter Park, 26. Competed in 2022 Winter Games.
U.S. Olympic Freestyle Moguls Ski Team
Women: 2 of 4
- Tess Johnson, Vail, 25. Competed in 2018 Winter Games.
- Elizabeth “Liz” Lemley, Vail, 20. First Olympics.
Men: 2 of 4
- Charlie Mickel, Durango, 21. First Olympics.
- Landon Wendler, Steamboat Springs, 25. First Olympics.
U.S. Olympic Nordic Combined Team
Men: 1 of 2
- Niklas Malacinski, Steamboat Springs, 22. First Olympics.
Women: 1 of 3
- Annika Belshaw, Steamboat Springs, 23. First Olympics.
Men: 1 of 3
- Jason Colby, Steamboat Springs, 19. First Olympics.
Halfpipe
Women: 1 of 4
- Maddy Schaffrick, Steamboat Springs, 31. First Olympics.
Men: 2 of 4
- Chase Blackwell, Longmont, 26. First Olympics.
- Jake Pates, Eagle, 27. Competed in 2018 Winter Games.
Parallel Giant Slalom
Men: 1 of 1
- Cody Winters, Steamboat Springs, 25. Competed in 2022 Winter Games.
Slopestyle
Women: 1 of 3
- Lily Dhawornvej Frisco, 16. First Olympics.
Men: 3 of 4
- Jake Canter, Silverthorne, 22. First Olympics.
- Red Gerard, Silverthorne, 25. Competed in 2018 and 2022 Winter Games.
- Ollie Martin, Wolcott, 17. First Olympics.
Snowboard Cross
Women: 1 of 4
- Stacy Gaskill, Golden, 25. Competed in 2022 Winter Games.
Men: 1 of 4
- Cody Winters, Steamboat Springs, 25. Competed in 2022 Winter Games.
U.S. Olympic Figure Skating Team, 2 of 16
- Ellie Kam, Colorado Springs, 21. First Olympics.
- Danny O’Shea, Colorado Springs, 34. First Olympics.
U.S. Olympic Biathlon Team, 1 of 8
- Joanne Reid, Grand Junction, 33. Competed in 2018 and 2022 Winter Games.
U.S. Olympic Bobsled Team, 1 of 14
- Hunter Powell, Fort Collins, 29. First Olympics.
U.S. Olympic Ski Mountaineering Team, 1 of 2
- Cam Smith, Crested Butte, 30. First Olympics.
- Jessie Young, Aspen, 41. Alternate for the two-person skimo team.
- Jaccob Slavin, 31, Erie. Defenseman for the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes. First Olympics.
Conversation starters while Olympics watching
The average age for Colorado’s Winter Olympians is 25 years and 10 months. The oldest is 41-year-old ski racing legend Lindsey Vonn, who is skiing in her fifth Olympics. The youngest is 16-year-old Lily Dhawornvej from Frisco, who is competing in snowboarding slopestyle.
And about those American snowboarders. Of the 24 American board riders competing in five Olympic disciplines — big air, halfpipe, slopestyle, parallel giant slalom and snowboard cross — nine are from Colorado.
Birk and Svea Irving are not the only siblings competing in the Olympic halfpipe. Seventeen-year-old twins Campbell and Finley Melville Ives will be competing in the Milan Cortina Winter Games pipe for New Zealand, with Campbell on a snowboard and Finley Melville on skis. Finley, who won the 2024 Youth Olympic Games and was 2025 world halfpipe champion in his rookie year competing in the World Cup, won X Games gold Sunday in Aspen. (Birk Irving won gold in the Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2016.)
One more on those Irvings: The journalists in the media corral at halfpipe events can get overly excited when their grandfather, acclaimed novelist John Irving, joins the spectating scrum. And Birk, a decade ago, tended to smirk at the inevitable questions from writers asking about his favorite novel from his famous grandpa.
Charlie Mickel is not the only Coloradan competing in the Olympic debut of a skiing discipline in Milan Cortina. Cam Smith from Crested Butte will be racing in the first-ever ski mountaineering Olympic contests, competing in sprint and relay. And Steamboat’s Annika Belshaw — who won her eighth national title this season — will be jumping in the Olympic debut of women on the large hill.
Could the Olympic freeskiing halfpipe final Feb. 20 feature the first-ever double-cork 1800, a dizzying five spins with a pair of off-axis flip? Aspen’s Alex Ferreira threw the first-ever double-cork 1800 in the Copper Mountain pipe at the 2024 Dew Tour competition but washed out the landing. Watch for Ferreira or that spinny Kiwi Finley Mellville Ives to bust out the 18 if the pipe comp escalates.
And a quick thing about Ferriera: His viral “Hot Dog Hans” YouTube series — featuring him ripping around his home hills while disguised as a beer-chugging curmudgeon — has several million views. Hans is skiing’s best alter ego since Shane McConkey’s Saucer Boy.