VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

(Photo Courtesy USSA)

South Londonderry

Snowboarding

Inducted 2019

A multi-time World and United States champion, Ross Powers was the first of many greats in the sport of snowboarding, and was one of the most highly profiled half-pipe event competitors. He was the first American male to win an Olympic medal in snowboarding in 1998 and became one of the first to win a Gold Medal winning the half-pipe at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002. He became the first male Vermonter to win a Winter Olympics Gold Medal. 

A 1997 graduate of the Stratton Mountain School, he learned to snowboard at Bromley and competed in his first U.S. Open at age 10. He captured the gold medal at the 1996 FIS Snowboarding World Championship in Lienz, Austria. 

Many times a U.S. national champion, he also was a World Champion in 2000, and that year captured titles at the Goodwill Games and the Gravity Games. 

Snowboarding became an Olympic sport at the 1998 Nagano games and Powers won the bronze medal in the half-pipe. That year he also won two golds at the ESPN X Games. He would lead an American sweep taking the gold medal in the half-pipe at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

The U.S. Open champ in 2003, he was first the next year in the European Open and was the 2004 Grand Prix half-pipe champ. Powers would repeat as the Grand Prix half-pipe champion in 2005.

While competing in 2001, he founded the non-profit Ross Powers Foundation that offers assistance to athletes in financial need. Since 2010 he has been the director of snowboarding at the Stratton Mountain School, and has also served as the snowboard ambassador at Okemo.

Powers was named to the Vermont Ski Museum Hall of Fame in 2013 and to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2014.