Bend’s Hunter Hess aims for Olympic gold in Milan-Cortina halfpipe

MILAN-CORTINA, ITALY (KTVZ) — Bend native Hunter Hess is scheduled to compete in the men's freeski halfpipe at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina on Thursday, Feb. 19. The event is set to begin at 1:30 a.m. (Pacific) as Hess seeks to earn his first Olympic gold medal.

Hess, a Summit High School graduate, officially qualified for the U.S. Men's Freeski Halfpipe Team in January. He enters the competition as a top-ranked contender, having finished fifth at the World Championships last year with a score of 89.75.

Local Roots and Early Beginnings

Born and raised in Bend, Hess began his skiing career with casual laps at Mt. Bachelor. He credits the local environment and his peers for his development as a professional athlete. "I just kind of started doing it for fun," Hess said. "I'd go out mid-day or mid-week and do some Wednesday skiing. Slowly but surely, it blossomed. I had a bunch of friends who did it and my whole community was really centralized around skiing."

Hess' development was supported by the Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation (MBSEF), a local program that assists young skiers in competition. He noted that the organization provided the necessary resources for him to progress alongside his peers.

"As my friends progressed, I wanted to progress with them," Hess said. "MBSEF was a huge leading cause for all of this. They pushed me so hard and got me everything I needed to succeed on the contest route."

Overcoming Setbacks and Injuries

The path to the 2026 Games followed a difficult qualifying cycle for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Hess suffered a series of medical setbacks, including a torn MCL, that derailed his previous Olympic ambitions.

"The last Olympic qualifying process was crazy," Hess said. "Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. I tore my MCL, did all the recovery and everything was tracking perfectly."

Following his recovery from the knee injury, Hess faced a separate emergency the night before he was scheduled to return to the snow. "I woke up in the middle of the night with appendicitis," Hess said. "I drove myself to the hospital, had immediate surgery and was out even longer."

The Road to Milan-Cortina

After rehabilitating from both his injury and surgery, Hess returned to international competition. He described the moment he realized he had qualified for the U.S. team as an emotional release. "It's been a huge uphill battle, but really gratifying," Hess said. "After the Aspen tour, I was at lunch with my parents and I just started crying. Everything kind of came flooding in."

Hess expressed that his primary goal for the Milan Cortina Games is to secure a medal for his community. "My real hope is to go there and bring some hardware home," Hess said. "This helped validate the effort, but it's not like the weight is fully off yet."

For the 2026 Games, Hess has focused on a specific routine he has been developing for multiple years. He noted that he is focusing on his own performance rather than the scores of other competitors.
"I've had this plan for a run in my mind for about three years," Hess said. "I'm not competing against anyone but myself. As long as I stick to that run and that goal, I believe the results will be great."

How the Competition Works

The men's freeski halfpipe event features 25 quota spots, though the field can reach 30 if certain multi-discipline athletes qualify. The competition takes place in a halfpipe that is 22 feet high. In the qualifying round, each competitor takes two runs and only the highest single score is used to determine the rankings.

The top 12 skiers from the qualifying round advance to the final, which consists of three runs. In the final, the start order is the inverse of the qualifying results, meaning the athlete with the highest score in the first round performs last. Scores from the qualifying round do not carry over to the final.

Each run is scored by a team of at least six judges who provide a mark between 0 and 100 based on overall impression. Judges evaluate several criteria, including amplitude, which refers to the height of the jumps and technical difficulty. Other factors include variety, execution and progression, which rewards skiers for introducing new tricks or creative combinations. To calculate the final score, the highest and lowest judge marks are dropped and the remaining scores are averaged.

Representing Bend on the World Stage

Hess emphasized that his success is a shared milestone with his hometown. "I was born and raised in Bend," Hess said. "The people, the community, it's been everything. Seeing MBSEF grow and help other kids has been really cool."