All photos: Courtesy of Kosak / Skiers: Reese Chapdelaine (left) Ava Keenan (middle) Nash Lucas (proper)
As a part of our job at FREESKIER, we’re all the time looking out for the following nice expertise in snowboarding and Ava Keenan is a reputation we’re placing on our checklist to maintain tabs on within the coming years. Born and raised in in Westminster, Colorado Ava has been snowboarding Vail since she was two and moved as much as the mountain city along with her household in 2020 to ski full time and go to Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy. At simply 14 years previous, Ava is the three-time Jr. Nationwide Champion in moguls, a Warren Miller movie star, podcast host and most lately, ski outerwear designer.
If that resume is making you are feeling like you need to be doing extra, you’re not the one one. As the primary ever black skier to win a sanctioned Rocky Mountain Freestyle Competitors, Keenan has her targets set on touchdown a cork 720 in competitors this yr and turning into the primary black skier to win an Olympic medal in her self-discipline.
In an interview with Warren Miller, Keenan credit her dad with being her greatest supporter and supply of inspiration. “He’s all the time telling us yet another run. Yet another rep. Yet another coaching day,” says Keenan within the Q&A. “He taught me concerning the energy of a development mindset and the way specializing in getting higher at a talent is way extra vital than specializing in a objective like successful or awards.”
A dynamic duo within the Vail Valley, Keenan and her dad observed freestyle snowboarding’s outerwear going stale within the bumps, park, pipe and even big-mountain. In true Keenan household trend, Ava and her dad took it upon themselves to develop their very own line of freestyle pants and jackets, dubbed Kosak. Impressed by the traditional ski trick, Kosak claims to place the “fashion” again in freestyle snowboarding, and gives mogul and park skiers contemporary drip with freestyle heritage sewn in.
The Authentic Pants characteristic the traditional knee patches we’ve come to know and love on mogul pants, however an argyle sample alongside the edges of the pant legs and Ava’s signature smiley face make this pant a Kosak signature. Accessible in a wide range of colours, the “OG” pants are designed to be additional saggy within the thighs and knees and taper in on the waist, characteristic a 10K waterproof and breathability score, 40 grams of insulation, leg vents, sturdy kick patches on the cuffs and outsized zippered cargo pockets. To finish the equipment, Kosak gives the Authentic Jacket, which options the identical signature design touches because the pants, in addition to a 10K waterproof and breathability score, 40 grams of insulation and corresponding colorways to combine and match with the pants.
It’s not on a regular basis we get to write down about ski outerwear designed by a young person, however then once more, Ava Keenan is not any common 14-year-old. The youngest individual to qualify for the NorAm Tour, Keenan continues to be on her come up and we’ll be cheering on this Vail Ski and Snowboard athlete as she continues to rise just like the star she is—decked out in Kosak Originals.
