With a mother from the Midwest and a father from Norway, Eliassen grew up speaking both English and Norwegian. At the age of 2, she quickly found the excitement of her life in skiing, and once she took to freeskiing she hasn’t looked back. Since her debut, Eliassen has won the U.S. Open four times, as well as captured two gold, two silver, and two bronze medals at the Winter X Games. She is the only female skier to have medaled in both the first halfpipe and slopestyle X Games events.
Beginning in the fall of 2008 and spanning until the spring of 2010, Eliassen set out on an ambitious two-year film project, “Say My Name,” and in same vein of past signature Red Bull films. In April 2010, mid-project, she achieved the Hip Jump World Record. She reached speeds of 60 miles an hour downhill, hit the custom 30 foot “hip” feature and soared more than 31 feet in the air. No woman has ever come close to reaching this height on skis.
Parallel to her ski career she graduated from the University of Utah with a B.S. in Marketing in 2012. In 2014 Eliassen briefly joined self-destructing messaging app Wickr as the Director of Marketing—managing marketing campaigns that included working with musical artists Iggy Azalea and Big Data, producing “WickrX Super Sessions” the first ever women’s big wave surf event at Mavericks, CA.—working closely with the founder to create a safe and private place for all people to communicate within the app.
Recently, Eliassen stars in Warren Miller’s ski film, “Here, There & Everywhere,” and is very active on social media via her Instagram account @gretegirl. Eliassen was elected President of the Women’s Sports Foundation in 2016 and served from 2017-2018.
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