Free skiing: New trick up his sleeve - Nico Porteous chasing gold at next year's Winter Olympics in Beijing

Nico Porteous unleashed a stunning new trick which carried him to gold at this year's X Games in Aspen and went on to win world championship gold.

Now the 20-year-old free skier has revealed he's working on perfecting another new trick he hopes will help him win Olympic gold in February.

Porteous, who along with snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synott won historic bronze medals for New Zealand at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2018, begins his World Cup season tomorrow with qualifying at the Copper Halfpipe in Colorado. The top 10 among the more than 40-strong field advance to Saturday's finals.

Porteous claimed X Games Aspen gold in January with a historic run that contained a trick combo that had never been landed before in competition. He landed a right 1620 and then combined it with the left 1620, something he has developed over 18 months.
And the Wanaka free skier realises he will need to execute something new again if he's to get to the top of the podium in February's Games in Beijing.

"I have actually got something new in the works," Porteous told NZME on the eve of qualifying. "But unfortunately, I don't think it will come out this weekend. I have a bit more fine tuning to do on it until I think it's ready to do at a competition. So yes, you'll have to keep the eyes peeled for that one. And hopefully it can help me a lot."

Porteous heads into the new season feeling less pressure to perform despite effectively having a target on his back. He is the reigning world and X Games champion in halfpipe and has five events between now and the Winter Olympics.

Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, Margaux Hackett, Alice Robinson, Finn Bilous and Nico Porteous were selected by the NZOC for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Photo / Photosport

But having already been named as one of five New Zealand athletes so far to compete in Beijing, he doesn't have to worry about trying to qualify.

"I'm in a very lucky position that I really don't have any pressure in terms of having to meet a qualifying standard," Porteous said. "All that there is for me to do is to go out and ski and so I actually feel like I'm in a really exciting spot where from now up until the Olympics I have nothing to prove and can literally just go out there and ski and that really excites me.

"Pressure is always something that I've found difficult to deal with. But I feel I'm in a very good space now because at the end of the day, the biggest amount of pressure is the pressure that I put on myself to perform, compete at my absolute best leaving everything on the table and not cutting corners and giving it my all."

While the pressure to qualify for Beijing is not there for Porteous, it is for his American and Canadian rivals who are fighting for just four Olympic places in the discipline, and this is their first qualifying event.

"It's a very, very stacked field and all the other countries are here. So for the US they are about to start the season battling for who gets the top four and who goes to Beijing. Everyone's here trying to prove themselves and trying to make that spot on either the US or Canadian Olympic team and so it's going to be exciting."

Nico Porteous is the reigning world and X Games champion at halfpipe. Photo / Photosport

Five other Kiwis are competing at Copper: Nico's brother Miguel Porteous, Gustav Legnavsky and Ben Harrington in the men's halfpipe, with Chloe McMillan and Anja Barugh in the women's.

"There is pressure on them to perform to try to secure their Olympic selection and no doubt they will achieve it for sure," beamed Porteous.

Porteous made a late change to his season preparations, cutting short a planned month off snow in November to head to Europe.

"I've actually been overseas now for a month and had two weeks of training in Austria. That was something I didn't plan to do but decided to go at last minute as I thought, you know, why not go and try and perfect some things [and] learn something new. And it worked out really well."

After Copper, Porteous will compete at next week's Dew Tour in Colorado before a short break over Christmas. He will then compete at the Calgary halfpipe over New Year's and a week later at the Mammoth World Cup in California before the X Games in Colorado in late January.