I wound up adopting two dogs from Sochi. It wasn't really me who brought them home as much as it was one of my best friends, Robin Macdonald, who was out there with me.
The chance of messing up and falling significantly increases when you're flipping through the air three times while spinning and trying to grab your skis.
I don't ever train half-pipe except for the short training sessions during events, and because of that, I have a really hard time consistently putting my runs down smoothly.
One of the most exciting and unique parts of slopestyle is that every course is unique. You don't really know what to expect when you show up at an event, and it's always fun trying to put a run together.
It's a life I would have never been able to foresee for myself, but I'm so grateful for it, and I really just loved skiing as a kid, and it's crazy how far it's taken me.
I'm actually sort of shocked that I was able to get a medal in 2014 and really have any of the success I had before because as soon as I came out, it was like a whole new world for me, and I felt so free, so confident, that it's actually shocking that I was able to compete any other way.
I think that being in the closet is really hard. It takes a toll on your mind. It takes a toll on you. I think it just makes every aspect of your life more difficult.
As a kid, I just felt like I didn't really have anyone to look up to that I felt like I could really relate to, someone that was out and gay and also competing in sports and finding success.
I'm so proud that now you can exist as a gay man and be an Olympian, and it can be beneficial rather than negative. So it's amazing. And I just think I feel so liberated now that I've been out of the closet for a while, and so I'm free in that I just get to be myself, speak freely, act freely, and I think that I am competing confidently.
I've always been someone who's had to compartmentalize my life because I was in the closet, and I was in fear of outing myself. I always had so much going on in my mind and couldn't share it with anyone, so I actually feel like, now that I'm out, I have less to compartmentalize.
The Olympics is a cool opportunity to represent our country, which is amazing. But I have another community I am competing for, and that is the LGBT community.
I look at photos of the Sochi Olympics - even though it sometimes seems like it was just yesterday - that photo doesn't even look like me. It looks like a child. I don't even recognize myself.
I love that our country is one where you have the freedom to protest and to stand up for what you believe in and speak on it.
When we have people elected into office that believe in conversion therapy and are trying to strip trans rights in the military and do these things that are directly attacking the LGBT community, I have no patience.
Getting to be authentic is so liberating.
I spent 24 years in the closet wanting to talk so desperately about who I was and what I am but too afraid to.
I definitely carry a little bit of a burden with me, being a gay athlete going to the Olympics. I think that there's pressure on me... It presents an amazing opportunity, and I think that it kind of gives us a chance to shed people's misconceptions and just kind of, like, break down barriers.
The Olympics is all about inclusion, coming together for sport. That's the footprint I want to leave.
