Kristi Leskinen
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| Born |
February 10, 1981 Hopwood, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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| Residence | Mammoth Lakes, California, U.S. | ||||||||||||
| Height | 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) | ||||||||||||
| Website | www |
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| Sport | |||||||||||||
| Country |
 United States
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| Sport | Freestyle Skiing | ||||||||||||
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Medal record
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| Updated on 1 August 2013. | |||||||||||||
Kristi Leskinen (born February 10, 1981 in Uniontown, Pennsylvania) is an American freestyle skier. At Winter X Games IX, Leskinen won a bronze medal in the Women's Superpipe. Kristi was the first woman ever to pull a rodeo 720—two rotations, head pointed to the earth. She was named one of the Twenty Greatest Adventure Sport Athletes of today by Faces Magazine in fall of 2005. She appeared on the cover of Powder magazine's Photo Annual in 2004. [1]
Leskinen was born in 1981 and grew up in Uniontown, Pennsylvania near Seven Springs Mountain Resort and Hidden Valley Ski Resort. She seemed to master every sport she came in contact with. For example, she learned to pole vault two weeks before Regional’s her senior year of high school and she ended up setting a school record while qualifying for the State Championships. In addition, she was the Western Pennsylvania breaststroke champion.
Leskinen’s favorite sports growing up were skiing and wakeboarding. She won the first mogul contest she entered and she was being groomed to compete in the Olympics as a teenager. Moguls did not offer the freedom she craved, so she switched to wakeboarding. She took second in the US Wakeboard Nationals and fourth at the World Championship. In 2000, while attending the US Open, she spotted some pros having a practice session on a rail. It was the freedom she always looked for in skiing. She realized that freeskiing is more challenging than wakeboarding so she chose a career on the snow.
In her first US Open, Leskinen was the only women doing the Big Air event and one of the handful of women participating on the Superpipe. By 2004, the sport had grown and the US Open had 40 athletes participating in the Superpipe, the largest of its kind in the world. She took second place.
Leskinen realized that videos reach a bigger audience than a single contest. She started filming all over the world. In 2005, she took bronze at the Winter X Games as well as a silver at the World Championship in the Halfpipe. In the same year, she placed first at the Gravity Games Halfpipe. Since that season, she has had many notable performances such as second place in the North American Open in 2008, third place in the European Open in 2008, and second in the Aspen Open in 2009.
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