Grete Eliassen

Bio

Grete Eliassen doesn’t just want to make her way in the world, she wants to change it. Grete, pronounced Greta, was born in Minnesota, USA in 1986. At the mere age of two she discovered skiing and soon realised she had a knack for it! When she was 13, Grete and her family, being of Norwegian heritage, relocated back to Norway. Despite her inability to speak or write Norwegian, Grete had no difficulty expressing herself on the slopes. Skiing became her escape and she started practicing more and more until, a year later, she got offered a place on the national team. There, her skill progressed quickly. However, in 2002 she began to feel pressured into leaving her studies behind and to begin focusing solely on racing. Not wanting to discard her education, she decided to leave the team instead.

Despite this, Grete has gone on to achieve some phenomenal results on her own. She’s achieved back-to-back golds at the Winter X Games, four U.S. Open titles, and wins at the European Open, Red Bull Cold Rush and the Dew Tour, not to mention a world record and high profile roles in numerous ski films. To top it all off, she’s also been dubbed Fri Flyt magazine’s ‘Woman Skier of the Decade’ award.

Not only is Grete fast becoming one of the world’s best female skiers, she also has a business marketing degree and has donated thousand of dollars of her prize winnings to charity.