Norwegian Birk Ruud is a freestyle skiing icon, becoming the first men’s Big Air Olympic champion at Beijing 2022. He won slopestyle gold at the Lillehammer 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games, slopestyle silver at the 2019 World Championships, four X Games Big Air medals, and successive Big Air World Cup crystal globes in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons.
Recently Ruud added a new accomplishment to his incredible list, this time marking a world first. After a lot of training and several attempts off a jump, Birk became to first person to land a double cork on cross-country skis. Pretty darn impressive.
It’s not that surprising to learn that he’s the first person to do this either, because why would anyone want to try? Only someone like Birk would set his mind to this accomplishment. My favorite part is that he makes sure to do it in cross country skiing clothing, rather than just wearing his regular ski outfit. He’s making Norway proud.
