Rell Harwood's Arduous 2026 Winter Olympics Journey

All Images: Courtesy of U.S. Ski Team | Skier: Rell Harwood

While Lindsey Vonn has been garnering all of the media attention for competing at the 2026 Winter Olympics without an ACL, Rell Harwood has been quietly in the same boat since December 2025. Not to discount Vonn in the slightest, but to give much-deserved praise for Harwood's grit and perseverance, it's important to highlight that the 24-year-old freeskier not only competed at this year's Olympics without an ACL, she qualifed without it.

Athletes, especially those in extreme sports, are no strangers to injuries. For most, it's a matter of when, not if. But the odds of injury hardly ever hold those back from their greatest passions, and when the Olympics are the goal, an athlete will do anything to get themselves there. Harwood herself knows what it's like to be so close and miss it. In 2021, just before the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Harwood was well positioned to qualify, but she tore her right ACL. Surgery kept her from competing that year but she worked hard in the gym and came back strong, skiing like herself again.

Since that first knee injury, Harwood has racked up an impressive amount of accolades, including three X Games medals (gold in the 2025 Knuckle Huck, silver in the 2024 Knuckle Huck, bronze in the 2025 Big Air) and two World Cup podiums in 2025. The girl has been on a competitive tear with style that oozes with confidence. Unfortunately, that all came crashing down at the Tignes World Cup in March of 2025 when Harwood tore her left ACL. She counted out the months and realized she had time to have surgery and get back on skis for the 2026 Olympic season. She worked hard all summer and was back sliding on snow in just seven months.

Feeling good on her skis and confident about competing, Harwood headed to Steamboat for the big air World Cup December 11-13, 2025, as her debut for the season. She skied well in the qualifiers, going into finals in first place but then over-rotated a switch 720 on her second finals run and tore her right ACL for the second time.

"I really wanted to give up," Harwood tells me over email as she awaits for big air qualifications. "The eight months leading up to that I had been working extremely hard doing an ACL rehab on my left knee. I felt so strong and confident skiing and I still tore my right ACL. I definitely thought [my chance at going to the Olympics] was over at that point."

Giving herself a few days to process the frustrating road block on her Olympic journey, Harwood ultimately decided it wasn't over until it was over. An MRI confirmed she no longer had a right ACL but her surgeon agreed that skiing without it was a viable option. As absurd as it may sound to recreational skiers, Harwood and Vonn are not the first professional skiers to compete in their discipline without an ACL and they won't be the last—Italy's freeskier Flora Tabanelli is also competing at the 2026 Winter Olympics without one.

"It was such a relief knowing I had the OK from my doctor and I think that gave me so much more confidence to go for it," says Harwood. "Also just knowing some other girls were trying the same thing made me think if they can do it why can’t I!"

Skiing without an ACL requires the quadriceps and the hamstrings to do all of the work to hold the knee strong and steady. For Harwood, that means she's been spending more time in the gym, getting as strong as possible, than she has on her skis this season in order to compensate for the injury. When she's not lifting or skiing, she's icing or stretching, essentially spending all of her time managing pain and inflammation. Being a slopestyle and big air skier, Harwood's craft is lacing together technical rails and impressive airs. Her style is one of my personal favorites to watch because she looks so comfortable, having a genuinely good time expressing herself. When I didn't see her at the 2026 X Games Knuckle Huck, I knew something had to be up, but figured she was saving herself for the Olympics. Technically, I wasn't wrong, but her Instagram announcement on February 7, the day of women's slopestyle qualifications, provided all of the context as to why she wasn't competing that day.

"It’s been somewhat hard to do rail tricks, which is part of the reason I pulled out of slope," Harwood tells me. "I love rails so much, so it’s been hard to hold back in that area. Also just trying new things has been difficult, especially mentally."

The women's big air qualifications took place on Saturday, February 14. 27 girls had a date with the Olympics but only 12 could move on to finals. Harwood took a really heavy slam on her first run of qualifications and just wasn't able to come up with the score needed to move on to finals with her last two runs. In our interview, which took place before qualification day, Harwood told me she had no specific goal at the Olympics, other than doing the tricks she wanted to do.

"I don’t care so much about where I end up but that I give it my absolute all and make myself proud," says Harwood. "Also to inspire anyone else out there who’s been knocked down one too many times. If you keep getting up, you might be surprised at just how far you can go."

I was a Rell Harwood fan before the Olympics and I'm an even bigger fan now. She put it all out there on the world's biggest sporting stage and can walk away proud knowing she achieved far more than she ever thought possible for herself, pushing her mind and body to the absolute limit. What greater feat is there?