Kristi Leskinen: Skiing trailblazer, reality TV star and entrepreneur

Kristi Leskinen made a name for herself in the skiing world in the 2000s, and has remained in the public view thanks to her appearances on television in later years. We’ll take a look back at her accomplishments as a skiing visionary, and her evolution into a TV star and businesswoman.

Back in the late 1990s, there wasn’t much opportunity for female freestyle skiers to show their athletic talent, according to The Ski Journal’s website. Kristi Leskinen found herself in a male-dominated sport, having to go the extra mile to demonstrate she was worthy of being taken seriously.

“I could speak for hours on the barriers I had to break through to get recognition,” Leskinen told Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame’s website. “The first contest I turned up for, I was the only girl there at the US Open of Freeskiing in 2000… I met Jonny Moseley and others, and they were so nice. Moseley gave me a pair of twin tipped skis because he recognized that I had some ability.”

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Leskinen showed up at the 2000 US Open thinking she would compete against a few other young women, since the event said they had a women’s competition. However, that wasn’t the case. “When I showed up, there weren’t any girls. So they said no, actually we don’t have a girls division, there’s no prize money, there’s no recognition, there’s no anything,” she told Free Skier.

Thanks to Leskinen and other pioneering freeskiing women, the sport slowly started to evolve. Women’s superpipe was introduced at the Winter X Games in the mid 2000s. Leskinen is the first women in the sport’s history to pull off a rodeo 720-two rotation flip, according to Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame’s website.

While progress was being made, Leskinen realized that freeskiing courses were still being tailored to men. Leskinen and fellow freeskiers Sarah Burke and Kaya Turski wanted to obtain more data about how others in the sport felt, and think about what they could do to make their sport more customized for women.

In 2009, Leskinen created the 'Kristi Leskinen Homecoming Invitational', which was a ski slopestyle competition only women could participate in. It was a huge success. “I’ve seen some of the most progressive women’s skiing ever during that contest,” she told ESPN.

After the event, Leskinen polled 87 male and female competitors, and realized that the desire for an altered course for women was prevalent. “The women of the LPGA don’t hit from the same tees as the men of the PGA,” Leskinen told ESPN. “Female skiers and snowboarders would progress their sports more quickly given a more suitable field on which to compete.”

As Leskinen was thinking about ways to improve women’s freestyle skiing, she was also faring pretty well in competitions throughout the world. She won the 2005 US Open halfpipe event, and finished second at the 2004 Gravity Games Halfpipe, 2009 Mt. Snow Vermont event, and the Aspen Open Slopestyle in 2009, among other high notable finishes.

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Thanks to Leskinen, Sarah Burke, Jen Hudak and others, women’s ski halfpipe was eventually adopted as a Winter Olympics sport. However, this was done after many of the pioneers had retired. Leskinen told CBS Sports, “The only time it grates at you is usually if you meet someone for the first time and they ask ‘oh did you ever to go the Olympics?’, and then (you’re) like, UGHHH.”

Leskinen was part of a 2009 reality show called The Superstars, where professional athletes and celebrities worked together to beat out the competition in physical tasks. She didn’t just participate; CBS Sports noted that her and her partner came out on top in the event. Leskinen’s team beat out those spearheaded by NFL star Terrell Owens and MLB star Jeff Kent, among others.

In 2018, Leskinen and fellow female skiing legend Jen Hudak teamed up to compete on The Amazing Race. They finished first in the initial leg of the race, which was set in Iceland. Leskinen told The Amazing Race’s website that she was excited for “the experience of traveling to places I may never get the chance to see otherwise.”

Unfortunately, Leskinen has had to deal with some notable injuries as a result of her career in extreme sports. “I had a brain hemorrhage in 2005. I was fortunate I recovered. For me, it was the combination of both wakeboarding and skiing that led to the post-concussion syndrome,” she told Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame’s website.

Leskinen had to deal with the grief of a sizeable personal loss in 2012, when Sarah Burke died after sustaining fatal injuries during a training run at a halfpipe. The New York Times detailed the ordeal, as Burke was just 29 years old at the time.

Leskinen told The Amazing Race’s fan website that her family owns a hotel resort and marina in Pennsylvania that she’s involved with. She also invests in sports-related startups and serves as a mentor for young female athletes.

USA Today covered some controversial comments made by Leskinen on social media in 2016. She said, “As athletes sometimes we risk it all to win X Games. No gamer in the world deserves an X games Gold medal.” Leskinen was less than thrilled to see the winners of a Halo 5 tournament receiving the same type of honor as her fellow extreme sports athletes.

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