The selection has capped off a great 2025 season for Luca Harrington, here celebrating his win as FIS Freeski Big Air world champion in Switzerland, 30 March. Photo: Miha Matavz
Wānaka freeskier Luca Harrington has capped a 2025 season that raised the bar for New Zealand skiing with his first Olympic selection for Milano Cortina.
The 21-year-old slopestyle and big air competitor was among the first batch of eight athletes called up for the games this week, and said he was determined to keep up his winning streak.
Harrington announced himself on the world stage in January when he claimed gold in slopestyle and silver in big air at his first appearance at the Winter X Games.
Luca Harrington is New Zealand’s first winner of the FIS Freeski Crystal Globe. Photo: FIS Park & Pipe
Luca Harrington is New Zealand's first winner of the FIS Freeski Crystal Globe.
In March, he then became the first Kiwi to claim the Crystal Globe as overall champion for the 2025 FIS Big Air World Cup Tour, and two weeks later, the first Kiwi to win the FIS Freeski Big Air World Championship.
It had been an exciting journey and those results were definitely "confidence boosting", but now was not the time to lose focus, Harrington said.
"It definitely was quite a successful year... but I'm just going to try and keep the ball rolling, keep the motivation up, and push my limits while also staying safe and being at peak performance for the games," he said.
Leading up to the Winter Olympic selection ceremony in Queenstown on Friday, Harrington said he had been relishing the more relaxed experience of skiing near his hometown.
"It's quite nice to be back home in New Zealand. We get to pick and choose our days, not need to worry about leaving to a new country the next week," he said.
"Anytime the weather's good, we're up there trying to make the most of it, training, trying new stuff. And then in the afternoons, always in the gym training and just mentally and physically preparing ourselves to be peaking at the games," he said.
Luca Harrington in action at the Freeski World Cup in Switzerland, 2024. Photo: STADLERPHOTO.COM
Harrington had a built-in training partner in his brother Ben Harrington, who represented New Zealand in the halfpipe during the 2022 games, and who was also gunning for selection for Milano Cortina 2026.
The duo hoped to join a lineage of brothers competing in the Olympic Winter Games together, including the Wells brothers, the Porteous brothers and the Melville Ives, who this week became the first twins to be selected for the New Zealand team.
"It's been our family dream for us both to get to the games together. So when he makes it, which I'm sure he will, it's going to be such a special moment," Harrington said.
The duo inherited their love for the sport from their mogul-skiing parents - and any rivalry had now subsided, Harrington said.
"When we were kids we would always be competing. But once we split ways and he went towards halfpipe skiing and I did the more slopestyle and big air, things have been very supportive between the two of us. I'm always there and always have his back throughout his competitions and he's the same with me," he said.
"We always just want the want the best for each other."
Later this month Harrington said he was heading to the northern hemisphere, where his schedule would ramp up in intensity ahead of the Olympics.
"We're out of here. Straight over to Austria, where we'll be doing some training camps and then heading into the first World Cup of the season in November," he said.
Harrington said having secured Olympic Winter Games selection felt nothing short of "absolutely amazing."
"It's a special moment. I'm very honoured," he said.
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