Kaila Kuhn, a 22-year-old skier from Boyne City, won her first gold medal in the 2026 Winter Olympics over the weekend.
Kuhn was apart of the mixed aerial freestyle skiing team that took home the gold. Team USA had a combined score of 325.35 points, and defeated Switzerland by more than 28 points.
Each individual athlete launches off of a ramp to perform flips and twists high up in the air before landing on a snowy slope. A panel of five judges adds up the scores to determine the winning team.
"We came in today motivated, strong as ever," Kuhn said in a statement. "We adjusted our jumps. We did some of the best jumps we've ever done, and we put it down when it counted, so we are so ecstatic right now.”
Kuhn said in a press conference that China is always right behind Team USA and China left it all out there in the individual event.
"I think our individual events didn't necessarily go the direction that we wanted," she said at the press conference. "We just let that fuel the fire to come back stronger in this team event."
According to Kuhn's Instagram, her parents put her on skis at the Boyne Mountain Resort when she was 18 months old.
Kuhn made her Olympic debut at the 2022 winter games in Beijing. She was ranked eighth in the world going into the winter games.
She individually placed in fifth in the women's aerials in Milan. Her teammate, Winter Vinecki of Gaylord, placed in sixth.
