With a snowblower, no fear and some ingenuity, a young Birk and Svea Irving were determined to catch air and stomp tricks in the small backyard of their Winter Park home.
For the siblings headed to the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in freestyle skiing, that even included skiing off the roof.
Birk and Svea would use a snowblower to create jumps and high starting points for their runs, generating speed for flips, spins and to slide recycled rails that littered the backyard of their childhood home. And when the snow got high enough, they’d start their runs on the shed, then progress to the two-story roof.
“The neighbors would look out the window and be like, ‘Oh my God, the kids are skiing off the roof again!'” the siblings’ mom, Stephanie Irving, recalled with a laugh. “The neighbors were super cool about it, but the kids knew that their dad would not be so happy when he got home and found out they were up there again.”
That pursuit of amplitude was the origin of a journey that’s seen the brother-sister duo emerge from a diehard skiing family as two of the best halfpipe skiers in the world.
360-degree spin changes everything
While Stephanie was an Alpine skier at the University of Washington and then coached the sport at the high school level, her husband, Brendan Irving, has worked for decades on the ski patrol at Winter Park Resort, where he is currently the unit’s director.
The siblings, who are three years apart — Birk is now 26, Svea 23 — have been on skis from about the time they could walk. Their parents tried to steer them toward racing, and Svea was briefly a mogul skier before she got into halfpipe. Birk Irving of the United States reacts while competing in the Men's Freeski Halfpipe Final during the Toyota US Grand Prix 2025 at Copper Mountain on Dec. 20, 2025 in Copper Mountain. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
But Birk set the early tone for the siblings to pursue freestyle skiing. At 5, he would ski around the mountain with his dad, who brought him to Winter Park’s racing course and encouraged the kindergartner to give it a try.
Birk declined, instead asking to go to the terrain park.
“I was like, ‘No, that’s not a good idea,'” Brendan Irving said. “‘Very, very dangerous.’ Being a ski patroller when the terrain parks were first coming out, I saw so many injuries and definitely did not want my kids involved in that. So I was doing my best to steer them into recreational skiing, or if anything else, racing, but they had their own plans in mind. And that started with Birk.”
That same year, Brendan bought Birk new racing skis. Upon inspection one evening, the father discovered scratches all over the bottom of the pair. Without Brendan knowing, Birk had skied over to the terrain park to do some jumps and grind some rails. The dad again cautioned the son, who, like sons tend to do, paid no mind to his old man’s advice.
Birk again went to the terrain park, tried to do a 360-degree spin, and ended up falling and tweaking his knee. One of Brendan’s fellow patrollers picked him up and brought him to the ski patrol hut.
“At that point it was like, ‘Alright, you just need to settle down and take it easy here — you’re 5,'” Brendan said.
Birk ended up being fine, but his dad had seen enough. Birk Irving of the United States competes in the Men's Freeski Halfpipe Final during the Toyota US Grand Prix 2025 at Copper Mountain on Dec. 20, 2025 in Copper Mountain. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
Brendan took Birk’s skis and put them in the ski patrol storage, so that Birk couldn’t ski unless Brendan knew he was coming up on the mountain and exactly where he would be going. Only Brendan overlooked one important detail back at the house, which is located right at the base of the ski area.
Birk found his spare set of Telemark skis, built a jump in the backyard and again attempted a 360 — this time, with success. Birk never looked back from there, and it wasn’t long before Svea abandoned the moguls to join her brother in the halfpipe.
“Svea initially didn’t seem to be driven by the terrain parks, but then as Birk became more and more involved and we started traveling to competitions, she would end up having to sit on the side of the trail and watch her brother,” Brendan said. “She just got a little fed up and was like, ‘Well, I could do all this, too.’ So she jumped right into it.”
All skiing, all the time
Birk landed his first sponsor at 7 and Svea at 13, helping their parents afford the sport. They both made the U.S. Ski development team at 15. As they became well-known around Winter Park as they ascended in their careers, they soaked in a year-round skiing lifestyle.
They would build jumps outside of the ski patrol hut to pass the time while their father worked. They skied every holiday together. They took annual trips to Mount Hood in Oregon, skiing there into late summer until the snow finally ran thin. And the family constantly trekked together through Berthoud Pass, spending days backcountry skiing away from the resort crowds. A young Birk Irving, left, and Svea Irving pose with medals and goods following a halfpipe competition in Winter Park, Colo.(Courtesy of the Irving family)
“I have such fond memories of us spending so many of my dad’s days off or my mom’s days off, or weekends off, building jumps in the backcountry, learning tricks and just falling in love with nature and the sport outside of competition,” Svea Irving said. “… Those times were so important to our development as young athletes and realizing that the results (in halfpipe) are never the most important thing when you get on skis.”
Birk called that ski-centric upbringing “an unfair advantage” that the siblings capitalized on, morphing all the fun times on the mountain as kids into professional success as young adults.
Now in his second Winter Olympics after placing fifth at the 2022 Beijing Games, Birk’s international breakthrough came at 16 at the Youth Olympic Winter Games in Norway in 2016, when he claimed gold while skiing on a fractured tibia. He didn’t warm up before his run, then gutted it out to win.
“Beforehand, the doctor said, ‘Well, you earned a spot here, but how much pain are you willing to tolerate from 1 to 10?'” Stephanie recalled. ‘Birk said, ’10.’ We knew his future was in the sport at that point, and that he was in the right profession.”
Medals, and Svea’s breakout
From there, Birk’s arrow has continually gone up. In addition to his appearance in Beijing, he has two X Games medals (silver and bronze), a bronze from the world championships, and he won the FIS Halfpipe Ski World Cup Crystal Globe in 2022-23.
Svea has also experienced success on the sport’s biggest stages. She took bronze at the X Games in 2023 and has made the podium in three World Cup competitions, most recently in January in Calgary. That performance clinched her Olympic bid after she had the fourth and final spot on the U.S. team heading into Beijing, only to be passed over in a discretionary pick by U.S. Ski and Snowboarding.
Just missing Beijing lit a fire under Svea, who “vowed to not be one spot out again.”
“That experience put in perspective to me how real this really could be, because (at 19) I don’t think I was taking it as seriously as I could have,” Svea said. “And also, that Olympic year was my first season coming back from knee surgery (for a torn ACL/MCL).
“I’ve been a lot more focused on this journey and really made sure that I’m doing everything that I can to stay healthy and set myself up as best as possible for this Olympic year. I’ve been really focusing on training harder and committing a lot more time to the sport than I did previously.”
The result of an enhanced dedication in the weight room has been a recent breakout, as underscored by her podium finishes. No longer is she “Birk’s little sister,” as the siblings’ longtime coach Jeremie Livingston explained. Svea has emerged as a star in her own right.
“She was always promising and looking good, but sometimes in this sport, it can take a little longer to get places, especially for the females and with their amplitude and grabs,” Livingston said. “The last two years, it took off for her. Everything started clicking — amplitude, grabs and spins, new tricks. She put it all together.”
While Svea has emerged in professional halfpipe, she’s also found a calling outside of it as well. Svea and Birk are the grandchildren of acclaimed novelist John Irving, author of “The World According to Garp” and “The Cider House Rules”, the latter of which won him an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Svea has her creative own creative gene via filmmaking, and she starred in a 2024 short skiing movie called “Statsis” that explores her connection to nature.
“The movie was kind of a way for me to step away from the competition and show a different side of me and why I really love skiing, which is being outside in nature,” Svea said. “It tells that story of the stillness of nature and how skiing is rooted in that.”
‘It’s for Winter Park’
Now superstars in Winter Park, Birk and Svea have the potential to medal in Livigno, Italy. Birk Irving, left, and Svea Irving following an FIS halfpipe competition in Calgary, Canada, in January 2026. (Courtesy of the Irving family)
“Anytime they’re at Winter Park Resort, it’s known, and the vibes are up and people want to watch them ski,” explains Devin Kearns, who oversees the resort’s terrain park.
The qualifiers for both men and women are Feb. 19, and the finals are Feb. 20 for the men and Feb. 21 for the women. Stephanie and Brendan, who had to watch Birk compete in Beijing from a party held at a Winter Park bowling alley because spectators were not allowed due to COVID-19, will be in attendance.
Birk said the siblings, who will train in Switzerland together for a couple of weeks ahead of qualifiers, are intent on not worrying about factors beyond their control.
“I just would like to land a run that I’m proud of, and I want to see the same for Svea,” Birk said. “It’s not so much about a placement for me. I want to compete with myself and hopefully do the best that I’ve ever done, and the result will be the result.”
On Friday, when the siblings and close friends walk together in the opening ceremonies, it will be a full-circle moment from all the times the duo skied together off their roof in Winter Park.
“It’s going to be super surreal for both of us,” Svea said, “and an incredibly special experience because not a lot of people get to say that they went to the Olympics with a family member.
“We also see (competing in the Winter Olympics) as an opportunity for us give back to our community and our parents and show that all this hard work, everything our parents sacrificed for us to get here, has paid off. This is not just for us. It’s for Winter Park. I want the town to celebrate our moment together. Because I think that’s what the Olympics is all about as well.”
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