Gold Medalist Kaitlyn Farrington Joins Costa Tequila
Today, we’re excited as ever to announce the newest member of the Costa Tequila family, professional snowboarder and Olympic Gold Medalist Kaitlyn Farrington.
Kaitlyn’s journey is a spectacle, one that has inspired us since the day we met her. For years, Kaitlyn was at the forefront of competitive snowboarding, skyrocketing her career to new heights, which were met with equal amounts of accolades. Then, in 2014 at the Sochi Olympics, Kaitlyn achieved a lifelong dream: winning a gold medal in Snowboard Halfpipe.
At that moment, she was on top of the world - in more ways than one - but her life would soon change after that.
Just a few short months later, Kaitlyn was forced to retire at age 25 because of a degenerative spine condition called congenital cervical stenosis. This prognosis became present after Kaitlyn suffered a snowboarding accident in Austria just weeks after the Olympics.
"The jump was tiny, maybe 10 or 15 feet over a ledge, but the landing was sketchy," Farrington says. "I planned to do a frontside 360, but I caught my heel edge on the takeoff and barely cleared the wall. I rotated into a half backflip and landed on my upper back and neck. My body went completely numb," she says. "I couldn't feel anything from the neck down. I was looking up at the sky thinking, 'Get up. Just get up.' All I wanted to do was stand up and walk. I heard the guys yelling, 'Are you all right?' and all I could say was, 'Help. Help. I need help.'"
When she traveled home to seek professional medical attention, the diagnosis was very clear from an array of doctors: her days of extreme snowboarding were over.
Fast forward to today, Kaitlyn has overcome this tragedy and is enjoying a life outside of competition, still riding her snowboard. She is touted as one of the best back-country ski guides in the world with recent trips to Argentina and Japan.
Kaitlyn has persevered through incredible hardship to carve out a life filled with passion and adventure - and we couldn’t be more excited to be a partner in her journey.
