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We’re approaching the season when Portland’s 17-year-olds check the mail for college acceptance letters. One of their peers, Alessandro Barbieri, is performing for a different set of judges.
On Feb. 11, Barbieri will compete in the snowboard halfpipe at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games. He’s a threat to medal: He was the youngest snowboarder to land a triple cork 1440 (that’s chucking yourself off a ski jump and doing three midair backflips), and no less an eminence than Shaun White identified him as a rising star: “He’s advancing, he’s making these tricks happen right up to the wire. Watch out for Alessandro.”
Finding him is actually a little difficult. At 17, he’s done very few press interviews. Fortunately, we live in an age when people document most of their lives on social media, and so we can assure you that he really is a Portland kid: He kitesurfs in the Columbia River Gorge, his mom is a former longtime Nike executive, and up in the West Hills a Maine coon named Bella waits for his return. Travel back far enough in his Insta timeline, and you’ll see a 6-year-old boy in a Sandy skatebowl called Windells, launching himself into the unknown.
