Snowboarder Red Gerard Is Totally Cool With Being a ‘F-Minus Celebrity’
At the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, American snowboarder Red Gerard had his moment. He was just 17, a kid who grew in the suburbs of Cleveland before his big extended family moved west to Colorado for better access to the outdoors; his dramatic victory in the slopestyle snowboarding competition gave the U.S. its first gold medal of those Games and made Gerard the youngest Olympic snowboarding gold medalist ever. His family chugged beers in celebration; the media ate up his tale of sleeping through his alarm the morning of his win, after staying up late to binge-watch the sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine . He hit the bicoastal victory circuit, making appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Live With Kelly and Ryan,
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]“The next six months were such a fun and cool time for me, going on all the talk shows and meeting cool people, and just kind of seeing a little bit of how a celebrity lives,” says Gerard, 25, today. “But for me, it was more like an F-minus celebrity.” Not that he’s complaining. “F-minus is fine,” he says “I’m all right. No one wants to be an A-list celebrity. That looks like too much work.”
Gerard—who made a cameo on Top Chef in June—may not overconcern himself with the perks of stardom. But that Olympic win eight years ago does leave him wanting more. “It gave me a perspective on snowboarding that I didn’t necessarily have before,” he says. “Once you get that first win, it kind of jump-starts that competitiveness in you.” While Gerard missed the podium in Beijing—he thought hard about pulling out of those Games, due to all the restrictive COVID protocols—he won back-to-back X Games slopestyle golds in 2024 and 2025 and took bronze this year. With a peak performance at the Milano Cortina Olympics, Gerard is poised to take up Shaun White’s mantle as the face of American men’s snowboarding. (On the women’s side, Chloe Kim has all the clout.)
He draws inspiration from his family, especially older sister Tieghan Gerard, who founded the food blog “Half-Baked Harvest,” has written best-selling cookbooks and is a notable social media influencer. Tieghan’s Instagram following (5.4 million) dwarfs that of Eileen Gu (2.1 million), Kim (1 million), and her gold-medal-winning little brother (266K). What has Red learned most from Tieghan? “Just put your head down, do the work,” says Gerard. “The trips that you don’t necessarily want to go on, the stuff you don’t really want to do, that’s just part of the gig.”
“He’s so dialed in,” says Tieghan. “More so than ever before.” Tieghan notes that Red can make good avocado and eggs—a.k.a. the breakfast of champions for guys who can’t cook.
Despite the extra focus, Gerard—who will compete in both Big Air, whose qualifying runs begin on Feb. 5, with the final on Feb. 7, and slopestyle, whose qualifying runs begin on Feb. 16, with the final on Feb. 18–doesn’t plan on changing his routine. “I try not to get too serious the night before a contest,” he says. “It really helps me to sit back and play a card game with my friends or go have a beer with my brother. Something to get my head off of what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
Though slopestyle snowboarding is a judged affair, not a race, Gerard wants his speed to stand out. “It’s not necessary in our sport to get down the hill the fastest,” he says. “I do think if that was a side-bet contest, I would be up there for one of the quicker snowboarders to get down the slopestyle course. I love when people snowboard fast and it looks almost a touch out of control. That’s what I like to watch.”
And speed builds amplitude—height off a jump—a key for snowboarding gold. “I definitely feel like I’m snowboarding better than I ever have,” says Gerard. “I do like my chances, better than ever.”
And the B-list suits Gerard just fine.