Skier Nick Goepper becomes 2nd Indiana athlete to qualify for 4 Olympics

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Freestyle skier Nick Goepper has become the second Indiana native, and first in a winter sport, to qualify for four Olympic Games.

Goepper, 31, of Lawrenceburg, retired after becoming the first Hoosier in more than 100 years to medal in three Olympics. He took silver in slopestyle at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

But after a year and a half, he resumed competing. He changed events from slopestyle to halfpipe and heads to the Milano Cortina Games as a contender for a fourth medal.

Goepper secured a spot Saturday on Team USA by winning the halfpipe World Cup at Calgary, Alberta. He became the oldest competitor to win a halfpipe World Cup.

He increased difficulty on his second run and was rewarded with a score of 94.80. Finley Melville Ives, 19, of New Zealand, was second with 92.20.

Winter Olympics: Indiana skier Nick Goepper wins silver medal in slopestyle

At last year’s World Championships in Switzerland, Melville Ives took the gold medal and Goepper silver.

Goepper was coming off a 16^th-place finish at Copper Mountain, Colo., on Dec. 20. He has earned six World Cup podiums in halfpipe, including two victories.

In an interview with Team USA, he said he “was fully done” after 2022. Then he switched to freeski halfpipe, a sport that is daring but requires obsessive repetition.

It took him back to the days of skiing on the Perfect North Slopes in Lawrenceburg.

“Halfpipe is risky, but it’s also methodical,” Goepper said. “It actually reminds me of where I learned to ski — in Indiana, on a 400-foot hill. You could lap it again and again. There’s a kind of instant feedback loop in the pipe that just feels like home.”

Home for Goepper now is Rollerblade Ranch, a training compound he built in the Utah desert that includes a 13-foot quarter pipe and a 50-foot airbag.

Indiana’s only other four-time Olympian is volleyball player Lloy Ball of Woodburn in 1996-2000-2004-2008. He won gold at Beijing in 2008.

In slopestyle skiing, Goepper won a bronze medal at Sochi 2014 and silvers at Pyeongchang 2018 and Beijing 2022. At Beijing, he became the only Hoosier to medal at three Olympics besides Lafayette’s Ray Ewry, who won eight golds in the standing jumps at the 1900, 1904 and 1908 summer Olympics.

At Paris 2024, Evansville swimmer Lilly King, Chesterton swimmer Blake Pieroni and Brownsburg cyclist Chloe Dygert all won medals at a third Olympics. King and Pieroni have retired, but the 29-year-old Dygert could compete in a fourth Olympics at Los Angeles 2028.

The Winter Olympics run from Feb. 6-22. It will feature events across northern Italy, with Milan hosting the opening ceremony and Cortina a venue for alpine sports.

Contact IndyStar correspondent David Woods at dwoods1411@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.