FIS Rewrites Its Own Rulebook to Make a Gus Kenworthy Team USA Return Possible

After representing Great Britain at the past two Winter Olympic Games, freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy is returning to Team USA. According to ESPN, the move was recently approved by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) earlier this month. Now, the 34-year-old is eligible for international competition and will once again compete as part of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team.

Kenworthy had initially competed for Team USA before switching to Team Great Britain. Now, he is back competing for the stars and stripes.

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The switch-up comes amidst a period of rule changes put in place by FIS. Back in 2025, the FIS updated its rules to prohibit athletes from changing national affiliation more than once — an early version of what’s now informally called the FIS nationality switching rule. However, when Kenworthy presented his desire to switch back to Team USA, FIS examined the rule and ultimately made a change.

“This was not an exception or an exemption from the rule,” FIS ad interim Secretary General Urs Lehmann told ESPN. “Gus’ case initiated a thought process and a change in thinking.”

Under the new rule, athletes may now be permitted to return to compete for their original country after a period of at least four years. However, athletes looking to make a third change must meet criteria that Lehmann describes as “even more restrictive than was required to make the initial change.” The criteria put in place are meant to combat competitive tourism — changing national affiliation to ease the path to international teams and competition.

According to an FIS representative and ESPN, the change will be added to its rulebook after the next council meeting scheduled to begin on September 28, 2026. 

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Kenworthy, originally from Essex, England, moved with his family to Colorado at just two years old. He started his career competing for Team USA, eventually qualifying for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where he won silver in slopestyle as part of a U.S. podium sweep with gold medalist Joss Christensen and bronze medalist Nick Goepper. He competed in his second Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, in 2018, where he was one of the first two openly gay men to compete for Team USA at the Winter Games.

One year after the 2018 Games, Kenworthy announced a switch to compete for Team Great Britain. 

“I wanted to honor my mom,” Kenworthy said. “It was also a strategic move as far as qualifying, and it opened up a spot for another athlete on the U.S. team. And I thought it would be my last Olympics.”

His first Olympics with Team GB came in 2022. He had initially decided to retire after the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, China, but he began to recover from decades of injuries and concussions. He chose to compete again at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympics, where he finished sixth in the halfpipe. Despite a solid finish, Kenworthy was not satisfied.

“I only gave myself nine months to train after taking years off,” Kenworthy said. “And I wasn’t too far out of the mix. I thought, ‘I’m healthy and skiing well, so why would I stop?'”

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He finished the season with Team GB, capped off with the World Cup in Silvaplana, Switzerland. After the season, he met with Team GB officials to discuss the future, but uncertainty surrounded Team GB’s funds for its skiers. UK Sport, which distributes funding for Olympic programs, had defunded GB Snowsport — the national governing body for skiing and snowboarding in the United Kingdom. For years, GB Snowsport had been the primary path for British skiers and snowboarders to reach international and Olympic competition. UK Sport’s decision to defund GB Snowsport resulted in a funding shakeup for Great Britain’s skiers and snowboarders, which left Kenworthy unable to commit to another season with Team GB. Team GB ultimately granted Kenworthy’s request to be released.

Kenworthy eventually met with U.S. Ski and Snowboard officials who were open to welcoming him back, but the 2025 eligibility rule remained an obstacle. U.S. Ski & Snowboard Chief of Sport Anouk Patty told ESPN that U.S. Ski and Snowboard submitted the paperwork to get Kenworthy back on Team USA in late April. According to Patty, the paperwork was essentially a “legal brief explaining why [Kenworthy] should be granted an exception to the rule and allowed to come back to the U.S.”

The paperwork cited two main arguments. The first was that Kenworthy was not seeking to compete for a third country, but was looking to return to one he had competed for in the past. The second was that Kenworthy had switched to Great Britain before FIS adopted the 2025 restriction.

Over four months after receiving the paperwork, FIS sent a letter to U.S. Ski and Snowboard granting his request. Lehmann said that the arguments were both “smart and reasonable,” and that Kenworthy’s history with Team USA and the desire to switch to an old team ultimately led FIS to permit the change.

“Why not allow an athlete to go back to their original national ski association, which invested a lot in them?” Lehmann said. “I know exactly what it means to be brought to the top by an NSA, and to want to give back something to the country that made you a famous skier.”

The move marks one of the FIS’s biggest rule changes following a major leadership transformation within the organization. FIS council member Alexander Ospelt defeated standing president Johan Eliasch in the FIS presidential election back in June in one of skiing’s most dramatic leadership shakeups. Just days before the vote, Lehmann — who was CEO at the time — resigned from his position. However, shortly after Ospelt’s election, Lehmann returned to FIS and now serves as the organization’s interim Secretary General.

Now, with the 2026-27 competition season nearly here, Kenworthy will again compete as a member of Team USA and the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team. The skier has already received rounding support from his teammates, including a call from fellow Team USA skier Hunter Hess.

“It means a lot that they support me coming back,” Kenworthy said. “I want to be a mentor, and there is a really good vibe on the team. It’s a more legitimate program now in a lot of ways, and it feels more inclusive.”

The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team will soon head to Europe to begin training. And Kenworthy will be right there with them as they prepare for this year’s competition circuit.