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She's not old enough for a driver's license. But at 15, she's the youngest U.S. Olympian.

Abby Winterberger believed she would one day make Team USA. But so soon? "I don't think it's really sunk in fully," she said.
Abby Winterberger of the U.S. after competing in the halfpipe finals on Jan. 10, 2026 in Aspen, Colo.
Abby Winterberger of the U.S. after competing in the halfpipe finals in Aspen, Colo., on Jan. 10.Michael Reaves / Getty Images file
By Andrew Greif
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To understand how the freestyle skier Abby Winterberger became, at just 15 years old, the youngest member of Team USA at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, it’s necessary to understand her fearlessness.

And that means hearing the waterslide story.

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Her father, Jim Winterberger, recalls Abby being “tiny, really young” when family stopped at a water park during a vacation. He and Abby had climbed several flights of stairs to the top of a towering slide that tossed four riders on a raft around a steep funnel before dropping them into a pool. Abby badly wanted to ride it.

But the attendant told Abby she couldn’t, as she was way too short. Her father thought she might cry.

“Instead, without hesitation, she dives headfirst into the funnel — without a raft,” he said. Immediately, Abby was “ripping around this giant bowl at an ungodly speed … blowing past adults who are barreling down in tubes.”

“The attendant looks at me like he’s just seen a ghost and goes, “Holy s---. I’m probably getting fired … and that kid is a psycho.”

Abby Winterberger of Team USA competes in the first run of the Aspen Snowmass Women's Freeski Halfpipe Finals during the Toyota US Grand Prix 2026 at Aspen Snowmass Ski Resort on January 10, 2026 in Aspen, Colorado.
Abby Winterberger competes in the halfpipe finals at Aspen in January.Michael Reaves / Getty Images

That kid, years later, would grow up to become an Olympian. She didn’t have “any expectations of making it to the Games” last fall, when she began her first season competing on a professional circuit, and is still too young to hold a driver’s license in her native California. But she’s not too young to launch herself off the halfpipe this month in the Italian Alps, against many of the same competitors she grew up watching.

“I don’t think it’s really sunk in fully,” she told NBC News.

Maggie Voisin, who was 15 during the 2014 Sochi Olympics, remains the youngest American ever to qualify for the Winter Games in freestyle skiing. Winterberger is a close second, only a few months younger, but at Milan Cortina she is the youngest American in any sport.

Winterberger and Cooper Davidson, who has coached Winterberger since she was 7 at OVFree, a club near Lake Tahoe, both said they are going into her Olympics debut “with the expectation that we’re going on a really sick ski trip, and we’re going to learn a lot from our peers, and just try to really take it all in,” Davidson said.

This will be Winterberger’s first time visiting Italy, let along skiing there.

Winterberger’s strong run of finishes in the lead-up to the Olympics makes it a strong possibility she could reach the final as the top American. But a medal will likely require her to nail an extra level of difficulty against competitors whose runs often contain more amplitude and rotations.

But even as she and her coach try to manage expectations, a big run can’t be discounted — this is the same teenager who has regularly blown past limits, as the story on the waterslide showed.

“I really don’t know if I see a ceiling” for her long-term potential, Davidson said.

“There’s been such a drastic uptake in the level of freeskiing in general,” he said. “Even considering the last Olympic cycle, for an athlete at her age to be at the level she is, the sky’s the limit. There’s no telling what she’s going to do.”

Freestyle skier Abby Winterberger
Winterberger at Aspen in January.Michael Reaves / Getty Images

Winterberger grew up in Truckee, California, a short drive from multiple runs around Lake Tahoe, and by 2 years old had already learned to ski to keep up with her older brother, Mack. From their first years working together, Davidson said, Winterberger possessed a unique determination and discipline that crossed over into other sports. She began competing seriously in gymnastics at 5 and continued until she was 13, and for a time resolved she would make the Olympics as a gymnast.

Her ambitions began leaning toward skiing in 2020. When the pandemic closed Winterberger’s local gymnastics gym, she and her brother began skiing off of homemade jumps in their backyard.

Watching the 2022 Winter Olympics deepened her push to go all in on snow. By then, she was already completing backflips on moguls runs, her comfort in the air stemming from her gymnastics background. Her friendships with skiers from around Tahoe who had previously qualified for the Olympics made qualifying feel “more approachable.”

“Seeing them when I was a little kid, it was just like a normal person,” she said. “And then [seeing] them going to the Olympics, I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m a normal person. Maybe I could go to the Olympics.’”

That goal began to feel more real this season, as she ranked 18th in the overall World Cup rankings and seventh in freeski halfpipe. She made the team, ultimately, thanks to what Davidson calls her hallmark of skiing smoothly, even in deteriorating weather conditions. She needed to summon that poise again last month before the a final Olympic qualifier competition in Aspen, Colorado. Realizing an Olympic berth was within the realm of possibility, Winterberger “was kind of freaking out” the night before she raced.

“Like, ‘If I do well tomorrow, this — this could actually happen,’” she said. “I didn’t really believe it. It’s kind of just like, ‘How could this happen? This is crazy.’ But yeah, then it happened.”

Skogen Sprang, the freeski sport director for the U.S. team, said that one pathway to making the squad is a best single result in qualifying events, “so the door is wide open to an up-and-coming athlete who performs well against the World Cup field. In this case, Abby capitalized on her starts in her first age-eligible year and posted some amazing results.”

“Although she was not currently on the U.S. team, we were very aware of her talents and have been watching her progression for the last couple years,” Sprang added. “It’s very exciting to have such young talent qualify for the Olympic Games and a bright indication of the quality of athletes in the U.S. pipeline for the future.”

Competing alongside many of the women she watched in the 2022 Olympics is “surreal,” she said. As Winterberger has become more of a global presence in professional skiing this year, while also competing in slopestyle and big air, she’s been trying to maintain the semblance of a teenage life in Truckee. To chase snow year round, she travels constantly, which has led her to attend school entirely remotely. Her friends, meanwhile, attend a conventional in-person high school.

She considered going to the same school, but it felt limiting.

“This is the life that I want to be living,” she said.

Instead, she did what came naturally. She dove in, headfirst, to follow her Olympic ambitions.

“She’s always given everything she has,” Jim Winterberger said. “Full send, every time.”

Andrew Greif

Andrew Greif is a sports reporter for NBC News Digital.