Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
The son of American and Italian professors who taught in Zurich during his youth, Alex Hall was perfectly positioned to embrace and eventually excel in slopestyle, the relatively new event in freestyle skiing.
The 2026 Winter Olympics were an opportunity for Italians to showcase their country and the majesty of the Italian Alps to athletes around the world. For Team USA’s Alex Hall, the 2026 Milan Cortina Games were also an opportunity to connect with his Italian heritage.
Hall was born in Alaska but grew up in Switzerland where his father, an American from Salt Lake City, and mother, an Italian from Bologna, were both professors at the University of Zurich. Hall’s multicountry background means that beyond English, he speaks fluent German and Swiss German as well as intermediate French and Italian.
Growing up near Zurich, he fell in love with — and discovered he had a talent for — skiing.
“When I was younger I just wanted to ski every possible moment,” Hall says. Luckily for him, the high altitude and relentlessly cold conditions of the Swiss Alps created opportunities for nearly year-round skiing.
Hall, who holds both Italian and U.S. passports, talked during his youth with Italian coaches about potentially competing for Team Italy. But after moving to Park City, Utah at 16 he quickly realized he wanted to ski for Team USA.
His first Olympic triumph came in the 2022 Beijing Games, when he claimed the gold medal in freestyle skiing slopestyle, a relatively new winter sport where competitors must navigate a course with rails, jumps and other terrain features.
“I just love that it incorporates so many elements of skiing and that you’re doing multiple jumps in a row,” Hall says. “I’ve prided myself in being good at so many aspects of it … and I think you end up being better at something you love.”
At the 2026 Games, Hall was able to feel the love and support from many members of his mom’s side of the family as well as many of his childhood friends from Switzerland who came to cheer him on in person.
“I loved pretty much everything about it,” Hall says of competing at the Games in front of his loved ones. “It was really special.”
On his second of three runs on Feb. 10, he nailed his difficult routine — which included complicated grinds and leaping off huge jumps, much of which while skiing backward — and earned the silver medal with a score of 85.75, just behind the 86.28 racked up by Norwegian Birk Ruud, who took the gold.
According to Hall, his gold medal routine in 2022 wouldn’t have been impressive enough with the judges to have earned a medal in 2026.
“It’s a testament to how relatively young our sport still is that it’s changing and progressing year after year,” Hall says. “With so many young athletes pushing the sport, the skills are getting more precise and greater every year. It’s cool to keep up with the progression curve and to be right in the mix.”
Hall, who turns 28 in September, says he’s able to grow as a skier by doing it as much as he can, usually between 200 to 250 days per year.
“You can always do work at the gym but skiing is the only way to perfect the craft,” Hall says. “You can only do that if you truly enjoy it a lot.”
Hall says he used to dread having to stop skiing in the summers but now he sees the benefit in having a bit of a break.
“I think having the mental reset is important,” Hall says. “You get to get excited about the sport again.”
Hall says he’d like to make Team USA for the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps but acknowledged it might be difficult, given that he’ll be in his 30s at that point.
“It’s definitely a young person’s sport,” Hall says. “I think it’ll depend on my personal excitement for competition and how my body is feeling. I’m taking it one year at a time.”
The above article appears in the August 2026 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture.
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