Fourteen-year-old Narooma local Valentino Guseli is on track to becoming a household name.
Retracing the tracks of Olympic medallists Torah Bright and Scotty James, the young snowboarder is gaining attention as one of the top junior freestyle snowboarders in the world.
His success is thanks, in part, to a pretty incredible family feat.
Valentino’s hoping a custom training jump, built by his grandfather, will help seal his path to the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Guido Guseli, proud Nonno to Valentino, said his grandson’s busy training schedule - that often meant he was overseas for months at a time - was enough motivation for him to build the jump, himself.
“Valentino is a very, very good boy, and because he was going away all the time his Grandma missed him.
“So, I came up with this idea, I said, ‘well, we’ve got the slope, we’ve got the land, why not?’.”
A giant airbag at the end provides a soft, safe landing; allowing him to try new tricks without fear of injury.
“I can just try whatever I want and it's safer than trying it on snow and I can be creative and think of crazy things to try and see if it works,” he told The Feed.
The jump uses the same Japanese technology that’s been gearing up overseas training facilities for more than a decade.
“We actually designed this one more for the bigger tricks…so we’re just trying to get ahead there, and create our own opportunities to match it with the rest of the world,” Valentino’s father, Ric, told The Feed.
Commentators are already calling him ‘the future’ of snowboarding.
Valentino first stepped on a snowboard as a toddler. Now he competes in Slopestyle, half-pipe and big air.
At 11, he was the youngest person to perform a double-backflip. This became his signature move, but he’s since moved on to bigger, more complex tricks.
His mother Kristen said his natural ability was evident from the get go.
Source: The Feed
“You'd be sitting on the ski tube and you'd hear these people behind you talking about that little kid in the orange onesie and you'd go, oh yeah, he's mine.”
While the Olympics are a major goal, Valentino is focused on all the competitions in between – as he prepares to progress from the junior division into open men’s in the future.
Source: Valentino wearing his telltale orange jumpsuit.
“I'm looking towards the next Olympics for sure, and all the other comps that happen every season. And when I'm old enough, I want to be able to unleash whatever I've got on the older guys.”
For Valentino’s mother Kristen, having a jump so close to home benefits more than just his training.
“We've got our 11-year-old daughter who misses her brother and her dad terribly when they go away.”
“It's good for our family and it's good financially because it means we're not spending the money traveling.”
Nonno Guido says the entire town of Narooma is behind his grandson.
“Everybody around the area would love to see him going to the Olympics.”
“I am very proud of him because he is very talented. Of course doesn’t take after me - it’s his Grandma.”
