Nevadan David Wise looking for Olympic repeat in halfpipe skiing

Nayeli Wise was only 2 when her father, David, won the gold medal in halfpipe skiing at the 2014 Winter Olympics. But she still remembers the trip to Disneyland that came afterward.

Now 6, the oldest of Wise’s two children is excited for her first trip to the Olympics.

She’s excited about what might come afterward, too.

“All she keeps asking me is, ‘Hey, did you win yet so we can go to Disneyland?’ ” David Wise said.

Wise, who was born, raised and still lives in Reno, has some work to do in South Korea before the family can return to Anaheim, California.

But the 27-year-old is in a good position to do so.

Wise won his fourth X Games gold medal in late January and, after two of the toughest years of his career, said he’s back to full strength.

“I feel like I’m 100 percent, but 100 percent when you’ve been at 80 percent or been at 50 percent feels amazing, so I really do feel like I’m in the best condition I could possibly be in going into these Olympics,” he said.

In between his two Olympic experiences were two of the hardest years of his life.

Wise wrote candidly about those experiences on his website; a shoulder and back injury and three concussions derailed him physically. Away from skiing, his father-in-law died, his sister lost her leg in a boating accident, one of his students committed suicide and his wife, Alexandra, went through postpartum depression after delivering their son, Malachi.

Every time he thought he was back, there was a new setback. It was an experience he described as “getting beat down constantly” for two years.

“Ironically, I think on paper it looks like two of the worst years of my life, but personally and spiritually and as far as the health of my wife and our relationship and our family’s health, they were two of our best years, so some of that adversity definitely I’m thankful for it,” Wise said.

Wise has used that adversity as ammunition for the Olympics, where he’s one of the favorites to win gold.

After all, he was bred for this sort of thing.

His parents volunteered during his childhood at Sky Profit, a nonprofit outside of Reno that teaches kids how to ski and snowboard.

“It was just a thing that we did as a family,” Wise said. “We went skiing every weekend, without fail almost, so I just grew up thinking that was normal.”

He started as a ski racer. Both of his sisters ski raced and his dad had, too, but David Wise was always drawn to jumping. He wanted to jump off things. He wanted to fly.

At 10 or 11, he finally convinced his dad to let him try freestyle under the condition that he would do both for a year.

“I made it about halfway through the year, and I was like, ‘Dad, this is what I want to do. This is so fun,’ ” Wise said. “That’s when I started skiing halfpipe and doing big air and all that stuff.”

Around the time he was getting into it, freestyle skiing was starting to gain popularity.

In 2014, halfpipe and slopestyle were added to the Winter Olympics for the first time, and Wise edged Canadian Mike Riddle for the halfpipe gold medal in Russia.

He was greeted with a hero’s welcome at home. Hundreds of people met him when he landed at the airport, he met Gov. Brian Sandoval, there was a parade for him and he was given the “Ski to the City.”

“It was just almost overwhelming how supportive the community was of me, so that was definitely one of the highlights of the experience,” Wise said.

He’ll have his own cheering section in South Korea, with Alexandra, Nayeli, Malachi and about 17 others making the trip.

“It felt like a lifetime accomplishment just making the Olympic team last time, and so I knew everything beyond that was just a bonus,” Wise said. “I was able to go out there and enjoy the ride, and I truly feel the same way about it this time.”

Contact Betsy Helfand at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BetsyHelfand on Twitter.