Gus Kenworthy is going for the gold — and has no regrets — on the eve of his fourth Olympics.
The British-American skier, 34, tells PEOPLE that despite growing up in Colorado, his decision to compete for Great Britain is “patriotic.”
“I feel good about it, I mean, I do feel like I’m American, but I also do feel like I’m British, and that’s where I was born and my mum’s British,” Kenworthy says, while competing at the 2026 X Games in Aspen over the weekend. “I’ve definitely gotten s— where people are like, ‘You’re a traitor,’ and I don’t think of it that way. I had this choice in 2014 to go for either country and at that time I was like, ‘Well, I live in the States.’ I wanna go for the States, and I did and I won a medal and I represented the States at another games after that.”
The Olympic silver medalist in slopestyle at the 2014 Sochi Games, Kenworthy began competing for Great Britain in 2019 — and the Monster-sponsored athlete says he’s confident in his journey.
“I feel like I don’t owe anybody anything and it’s the path that I chose last time around to do it for my mom and this time around like I came back and had such short timing that even if I had wanted to switch, I wouldn’t have been able to,” he says.
Gus Kenworthy at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.
Quinn Rooney/Getty Images
He adds that there are “a lot of different reasons” why he competes for literally his mother’s land — and that securing a bid to compete on Team USA would have been seemingly more difficult.
“Making the team for the U.S. is a nightmare and those guys are like fighting dog-eat-dog for those four spots and ultimately it results in men not making the U.S. team that are world-class that could be on the podium that don’t get to be there, and me also going for the U.S. is just another person that’s fighting for those same four spots and another person that misses out.”
Gus Kenworthy.
Monster Energy
He adds, “And me going for GB [Great Britain], like, I opened up a quota spot. I didn’t take that spot from anybody. That spot wasn’t a spot otherwise. And maybe that quota spot took away the very one of the spots at the bottom of the ranking, but that’s someone that’s competing at a lower level anyway. … If anything, I almost feel like it’s more patriotic I’m letting another American go.”
“I feel like I don’t owe anybody anything and it’s the path that I chose last time around to do it for my mom and this time around like I came back and had such short timing that even if I had wanted to switch, I wouldn’t have been able to.”
Amid his Olympics run, the athlete recently revealed a previously unknown part of his past.
In an interview with The New Yorker published on Sunday, Jan. 25, Kenworthy revealed a “secret relationship” he had before he came out as gay which he hid with friend Miley Cyrus, comparing the experience to the hit show Heated Rivalry.
“I also had a secret relationship, with these clandestine meetings and hookups,” Kenworthy said. “And Miley Cyrus was my own Rose, this famous person that I was suddenly linked to, and as much as I kind of wanted it — because that’s the person you would want to be with if you’re straight, someone successful and beautiful and talented — it’s not the same as when you’re with a guy.”
To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, come to people.com to check out ongoing coverage before, during and after the games. Watch the Milan Cortina Olympics and Paralympics, beginning Feb. 6, on NBC and Peacock.