'Speedy' Peterson's signature move, the Hurricane, makes explosive return to men's aerials at Milan Cortina
Jeret Peterson claims silver in men's aerials at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada.
Megha Gupta (NBC)
Updated: Feb. 21, 2026 4:44 am ET
On Friday, the world bore witness to not one, not two, but three Hurricane attempts in the men's aerials event.
The explosive aerials maneuver is gaining traction in 2026 after it was once thought to be so foolish that only one skier attempted it — a skier who, on multiple levels, could be credited with igniting the technical revolution in aerials.
The Hurricane was coined and created by the late Jeret "Speedy" Peterson, who was inspired by the feeling of being caught in the middle of a storm. The jump consists of three flips and five rotations, all of which are completed in a little over three seconds.
In many ways, the trick was a metaphor for Peterson's life. The American lost his sister in a car accident when he was 5, went bankrupt for a time, embraced sobriety, and wrestled with suicidal thoughts.
For all that Peterson endured in his personal life, he was never one to shy away from a challenge on the course. The Boise native attempted the trick at the 2006 Torino Olympics, falling on his landing and finishing in 7th.
The aftermath of his loss wasn't pretty. He struggled both on and off the slopes over the next few years, getting into fights and failing to make podiums. But Peterson wasn't one to give up. He surprised everyone by making a comeback during the 2009-10 season, qualifying for the U.S. Olympic ski team to compete in his third Olympic Games in Vancouver.
Peterson's first run on Cypress Mountain was less than stellar, putting him in 5th. It was his second jump, when he attempted — and landed — the infamous Hurricane, that launched him into 2nd to snag Olympic silver.
Almost 16 years to the day that Peterson landed the Hurricane, three athletes attempted his signature trick in the race for Olympic gold in Livigno, Italy.
Ukrainian aerial skier Dmytro Kotovskyi led the charge during the qualification round but tumbled backwards when landing while Pirmin Werner (SUI) fell head over heels when attempting the trick for his last jump of the final. Switzerland's Noe Roth was the only one to successfully put it down — the first cleanly landed Hurricane at the Olympic Games since 2010.
Roth executed the trick for the first jump of the final, setting the bar high with 131.56 points. He was unable to duplicate it in the superfinal as tricks cannot be replicated between the two final rounds; however, his five-twist double full-double full-full was enough to snag silver. It was an unprecedented day of competition for men's aerials, with all six athletes attempting a trick with five twists in the final.
Prior to these Games, Kotovskyi was the only other skier to successfully land a Hurricane in competition. Kotovskyi landed his en route to his first World Cup victory in Deer Valley, New Hampshire, in 2023 to set what was then a World Cup record with a score of 138.32. The Ukrainian aerialist didn't stop there, going on to execute yet another trick with a staggering degree of difficulty in the form of a full-full triple full.
International athletes aren't the only ones raising the level of aerials.
American Chris Lillis became the first American since Peterson to perform a quintuple twisting triple backflip in competition at the 2021 World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
“Speedy was just a larger-than-life icon in my eyes growing up,” Lillis said at the time. “It shows me that I’m jumping well enough to maybe have the same kind of success that he had in his career, but also a tremendous honor to be put in the same sentence as someone I grew up in awe of.”
In the years after Peterson, the American men struggled with consistency on both the World Cup and Olympic stage. Despite their unpredictability, their performance in mixed team aerials is toe-to-toe with some of the best aerialists in the world. At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Lillis, along with Ashley Caldwell and Justin Schoenefeld, stunned a nearly unbeatable Chinese team on home turf. Lillis duplicated his mixed team success at worlds with Caldwell and Quinn Dehlinger one year later. He also beat Kotovskyi and Roth in mixed team aerials alongside Dehlinger and Kaila Kuhn to claim his second consecutive world title in Engadin, Switzerland.
The recent mixed team successes for the U.S. is a testament not only to the depth of the American field, but proof that American aerialists have the potential to follow in Peterson's footsteps.