Biography
Professional skier and television personality Rory "Bushy" Bushfield is making waves and powder across the Globe. The Alberta native began his versatile career as a Moguls skier on the Canadian Alpine Ski Team. He quickly made a name for himself, winning several Gold medals and becoming a Junior World Champion. As Bushfield's profile rose in the Mogul world, a new emerging discipline called freeskiing was just taking hold. Ever the adventurer, this new no-hold-barred, make-the-rules-up-as-you-go, style of skiing appealed to Bushfield, and he literally jumped from Moguls into professional freeskiing full-time. Bushfield earned dozens of awards in the new discipline - including a Gold Medal at the 2002 Planet X Winter Games Freeskiing Championship, a sixth place finish in slopestyle at the US Freestyle Open, and was selected Powder Magazine's "Most Man-Made Air" winner, among others. Soon, he was a regular fixture at major events like Winter X Games and the BMW X3 Freeski Invitational, while also blazing trails in the Backcountry world. Bushfield also has the distinction of being the first skier to successfully land a 1080 in Half-Pipe competition. He has also made a name for himself on the film circuit, starring in over thirty major ski movies such as Matchstick Productions' Seven Sunny Days and Attack of La Nina, and Rocky Mountain Sherpas' All.I.Can. In 2012, Bushfield joined X Games star Travis Pastrana's global traveling Nitro Circus Live Tour http://nitrocircus.com/nitro-circus-live-north-american-tour-2014/. Based on Pastrana's popular MTV series of the same name, Bushfield translates his own visually jaw-dropping style of freeskiing to a pair of "roller skis", and performs to sold-out arenas all over the world. Bushfield's talents extend well beyond the slopes. In winter 2013, he designed the "Bushywayne" powder ski, the first in the "Pro Model" series from sponsor, high-performance brand Nordica http://www.nordicafreeskiers.com/athletes/Rory-Bushfield/. Not content to just lend his name, he consulted on all conception elements including the Surrealistic-style graphic, which Bushfield describes as, "basically a skull throwing up parts of my garage." In March of this year, Bushfield brought his athletic skill and charm to the small screen becoming the first celebrity champion of the ABC celebrity diving show, Splash! http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/splash. Bushfield faced the daunting task of learning and executing platform and springboard dives from as high as 10 meters in front of a panel of judges that included Olympic Gold medal winners and a live studio audience. As the result of suffering a ruptured eardrum early in the season - an injury that made it impossible to train in the water - Bushfield had to perform every dive for the first time during broadcast. His unmatched raw talent combined with his consistent positivity and movie star good looks won him the hearts of millions of fans and the cast alike. As such, it came as no surprise that Bushfield easily took home the Show's top honors. When Bushfield is not winning competitions or performing, he donates his time to philanthropic causes. He volunteers as a youth ski coach and founded and oversees the Sarah Burke Foundation. The Sarah Burke Foundation is a non-profit created in memory of Bushfield's wife, action sports icon, freeskier Sarah Burke. A 2014 Sochi Olympic Gold Medal favorite, Sarah was the first female professional Half-Pipe skier in history. She won an incredible five X-Games Gold Medals, became the first skier to ever win an ESPY, and forever opened the doors for all women in action sports. The Foundation offers financial assistance to young winter sports athletes in need and supports numerous charitable causes like St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital http://www.sarahburkefoundation.com. Bushfield's second half of 2013 and 2014 will see him busier than ever before. In September 2013, he will embark upon the Into the Mind World Film Tour, a philosophical sports documentary that follows Bushfield and other of the World's top action sports athletes as they travel to some of the Globe's most remote and exotic locations. He will then support Team Canada in Sochi, Russia, at the 2014 Olympics before rejoining the Nitro Circus Live Tour in 2014. Bushfield currently resides in Squamish, British Columbia with his dog, Dexter The Great.
