Eric Bergoust
Updated: January 27, 2026
Eric Bergoust was born August 27, 1969, in Missoula, Montana, and became one of the most accomplished aerial skiers in U.S. history. As a boy he turned his Missoula home into a training ground, jumping off a two-story roof onto a mattress and later building homemade jumps with his brothers at Lost Trail Ski Area after seeing World Cup aerials on TV in the mid-1980s.
Bergoust broke through internationally in the 1990s, winning the NorAm aerials title early in his career and then competing in four consecutive Winter Olympics: 7th at Lillehammer 1994, gold medalist at Nagano 1998, 12th at Salt Lake City 2002, and 17th at Turin 2006. Beyond the Olympics he earned silver at the 1997 World Championships in Nagano, gold at the 1999 World Championships, and dominated the World Cup circuit with at least 15 World Cup victories, including aerials titles in 2001 and 2002 and the overall freestyle World Cup title in 2002. At one point he held the three highest scores ever recorded in World Cup aerials competition, underscoring how far he pushed the difficulty of the sport.
After more than a decade and a half on the World Cup tour, Bergoust retired from competition in the mid-2000s, formally stepping away after the 2006 season. He returned to Montana and began mentoring young freestyle skiers through the Missoula Freestyle program at Montana Snowbowl, then moved into national-team coaching roles. By the late 2010s he had been named World Cup Aerials Coach (and later Freestyle Elite Aerials Coach) with U.S. Ski & Snowboard, working primarily out of Utah Olympic Park in Park City while still maintaining close ties to Montana.
Bergoust's reputation within the sport rests as much on his work ethic and technical focus as on his daredevil image: teammates and coaches have long described him as a meticulous, video-obsessed trainer who consistently did more than coaches asked and helped raise the technical ceiling of men's aerials. In recognition of his career?Olympic gold, World Championship gold, overall World Cup titles, and his role in advancing aerials?he was elected to the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame, with induction in the mid-2020s.
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Updated: January 27, 2026
