- CA-BC-WW001
- Persoon
- b. October 17, 1950
Wayne Wong is a Canadian ski champion and the innovator of freestyle/'hotdog' skiing. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential skiers of the 20th century.
Born in Vancouver, Wong had his first ski lesson at the age of 11. In 1971, as a ski school instructor at Mount Seymour, he was persuaded by friends to enter the inaugural National Championships of Exhibition Skiing at Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. Wong won third place, launching a career that would see him receive international acclaim. He pioneered an unrestricted, inventive new style of skiing, characterized by daring stunts such as the "Wong Banger" and "Wongmill."
Wong was a member of the K2 and Salomon Freestyle Ski Teams from 1972 to 1976, achieving numerous victories. He was the Europa Cup Freestyle Champion in 1973, the Rocky Mountain Freestyle Skiing Champion and the Japanese International Freestyle Skiing Champion in 1975, and the World Powder 8 Champion in 1984, 1986, and 1987. Wong was also a Level 4 Certified member of the Canadian Ski Instructors Alliance and served as a member of the CSIA's Interski team in Czechoslovakia in 1975. He served as the director of the freestyle section of the Toni Sailer/Dave Murray Summer Ski Camp in Whistler from the early 1970s until the 1990s. He has appeared in countless ski movies and was a torch bearer for the 2002 Winter Games.
Award and honours received by Wayne Wong include: named Skiing Magazine's Freestyle Skier of the Year for 1972, named one of Skiing Magazine's 25 Most Influential Skiers of All Time in 1999, voted as one of Ski magazine's Top 100 Skiers of All Time in 2000, received Guardian Angel Award for his dedication to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in 2004, named one of Powder Magazine's Top 48 Greatest Skiers of Our Time in 2006, received Frances Williams Preston Award from the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Research Center in 2008, and was inducted into the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame in 2009 and the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2012.