THE

GLOBAL

STARRING
3 OF THE
WORLD’S
The Greatest MOST
Antiheroes DOMINANT
in Sports ATHLETES
History

Switzerland’s MOHAMED
Avalanche-
Rescue
SALAH
Angels
SHOHEI
Who to
Root for
OHTANI
at the
Winter
Olympics

THE
MAN WHO
CHANGED
BASKETBALL
FOREVER
 THE
GLOBAL

ISSUE
STARRING
3 OF THE
WORLD’S
The Greatest MOST
Antiheroes DOMINANT
in Sports ATHLETES
History

Switzerland’s STEPHEN
Avalanche-
Rescue
CURRY
Angels
MOHAMED
Who to
Root for
SALAH
at the
Winter
Olympics

THE
BABE RUTH
OF MODERN
BASEBALL
 THE
GLOBAL

STARRING
3 OF THE
WORLD’S
The Greatest MOST
Antiheroes DOMINANT
in Sports ATHLETES
History

Switzerland’s STEPHEN
Avalanche-
Rescue
CURRY
Angels
SHOHEI
Who to
Root for
OHTANI
at the
Winter
Olympics

THE
BEST PLAYER
IN THE WORLD’S
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 CONTENTS

February
GQ World On the Covers

28 Ways to Activate Your Wardrobe.. . ... .. .. . . . .. .. 19

K AMARU USMA N , the Most Dangerous

Fighter in the World. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

What You Can Learn From the

Ageless Athlete. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Photograph by
Shaniqwa Jarvis. Styled
by Mobolaji Dawodu.
How Do You Make an Iconic Watch? Coverall, $128, by Levi’s.
Shirt, his own. Shoes,
Put It on a Sports Star. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 $145, by Birkenstock.
Hat, $80, by Belstaff.
Watch, $7,200, by Hublot.
What Three Decades of NBA Heroes Taught Bracelet, $12,000,
SE AN T HO R C ON ROE About Manhood.. . .. .. . .. . .. . 34 by David Yurman.

Features
Cover Stories
S T EPHE N C U RRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
SHO HEI O H TAN I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Photograph by Eli Russell
MOH A ME D SA L A H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Linnetz. Styled by Jon
Tietz. Vest, $1,200, by
Gucci. Pants and socks
Cold World: Winter Olympians to Watch. . . . . . . . . . . 68 from ABC Signature
Costume. His own cleats
by Asics. Hat, his own.
The Rescue Heroes of the Swiss Alps. .. . .. .. . . . ... . 74

The Greatest Living Antiheroes in Sports.......... 80

“OFFICE GRAILS”: COURTESY OF SUBJECTS.

Office →
Grails PIERRE ALEXANDRE
M’PELÉ Photograph by Fanny
Head of editorial
→ content, Latour-Lambert. Styled
SATOSHI NIIBORI GQ France by Jon Tietz. Coat,
Head of editorial “If tailoring is the → $5,300, by Gucci. Vintage
content, GQ Japan
mother of ADAM BAIDAWI tank top from Melet
“These trousers by Deputy global Mercantile. Pants, $495,
menswear, editorial director
workwear company by Winnie New York.
Hedi Slimane is her “Issey Miyake
Toraichi are the Sneakers, $80, and cleats
sharpest kid.” trousers: the official
same model worn at (worn around neck),
Japanese office cheat code for
$160, by Adidas. Socks,
construction sites.” cozy luxe.”
$18 for pack of three,
by Adidas Originals.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 9
 CONTENTS

February

ST YLIST, MOBOL A JI DAWODU.

For our cover story on Stephen Curry, see page 38.

Jacket, $570, by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. Sweater, $1,250, by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello.

1 0 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 P H O T O G R A P H B Y S H A N I Q W A J A R V I S
 THE
REAL
ACTION
IS
OFF THE
FIELD.

WAT C H AT youtube.com/gqsports
 CONTENTS

February

ST YLIST, JON TIET Z.

For our cover story on Shohei Ohtani, see page 48.

Jacket, price upon request, by ERL. Turtleneck, $178, by Boss. Hat, his own.

1 2 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 P H O T O G R A P H B Y E L I R U S S E L L L I N N E T Z
 THE ORIGINAL
PLANT PROTEIN ™

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`iVÕÃÃiÀÛ}]7∂ `iÀvÕ*ÃÌ>VÃÃ>}`ÃÕÀViv
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 CONTENTS

February

ST YLIST, JON TIET Z.

For our cover story on Mohamed Salah, see page 58.

Jacket, $280, by Adidas Originals by Wales Bonner. Turtleneck, $1,040, and pants, $1,230, by Louis Vuitton Men’s.
Bandana, stylist’s own.

1 4 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 P H O T O G R A P H B Y F A N N Y L A T O U R - L A M B E R T
BREW UP
SOME PASSION
Want to brew better tea? Start with TAZO Passion. This caffeine-free blend combines
crisp, delicious flavors of hibiscus, orange peel and lemongrass for a flavor so good,
just one sip will have you head over heels. (Don’t say we didn’t warn you.)
 LETTER FROM Photos from my
film archive of
THE EDITOR good times
spent with Virgil
over the years,
including:
backstage at
Kanye concerts,
on set at GQ
shoots, and
partying with
positivity all
over the world.

Virgil
Abloh’s
Magnificent Louis Vuitton, clothes were never the interaction. In Virgil-speak, as I rose

Ubiquity main point. He was an ideas man.

One of Abloh’s pitch-perfect ideas
was to write “VIRGIL WAS HERE” on
up the ranks of GQ, I wasn’t doing a
good job as an emerging journalist, I
was “the Walter Cronkite of the streets.”
Welcome to the first-ever GQ Sports fans’ sneakers. But the bigger accom- A mutual friend who recently started
issue of this magazine. Instead of plishment is that Virgil was everywhere. finding success in the art world became
The concepts that Virgil birthed— “our Larry Gagosian.” He really believed
waxing about Stephen Curry, Shohei and valued more than the products our creative community would take over
Ohtani, and Mohamed Salah though, that served as their vessels—came the world. (And under his leadership,
I want to use this space to share about in an unstoppable multidisciplinary we kinda have.) As hard as he worked
torrent. As waves of young aspiring and as much as he accomplished, Virgil
the loss of a titan in our world: Virgil creative directors began imitating him, somehow always had a little extra gas
Abloh. ¶ Virgil’s death on November 28, Virgilness became ubiquitous across to pour in your tank. And he believed
our culture and across the world. Virgil wholeheartedly in the potential of us all.
2021, precipitated an outpouring of was like one of the graffiti writers he This might be controversial, but in
new remembrances online and off, but idolized, but on ultramodern global ste- my mind the thing that secretly made
my favorite Virgil story has been the roids. He had invented a new and deeply Virgil so inspiring to so many is that,
radical way of tagging up the world. unlike Ye or, say, Rick Owens, he wasn’t
same for years. It goes like this: Speaking of ubiquity, one thing necessarily destined to be a capital-A
I admire about Virgil is that he gave artist. He started as a guy-behind-the-
Kanye West’s longtime publicist, Gabe pretty much everyone in fashion, guy and had to out-work and out-create
Tesoriero, is escorting New York Times music, and design his personal cell everyone else to manifest his beauti-
pop music critic Jon Caramanica back- phone number. As part of his open- fully disruptive success—and he pushed
stage at Ye’s Governors Ball gig when source approach to the creative project that idea of the hard-hustling, multi-
the pair run into Virgil, who was then of living an interesting life, he gave the hyphenate creative to new heights. He
still working as Ye’s creative right hand. same 10 digits not just to Drake, Marc single-handedly made being a creative
The year is 2013. Ye is at the height of Jacobs, and Bernard Arnault, but to into a fine-art form.
his powers, arguably the biggest artist scores of random aspiring photogra- By the time he passed away at age
in the world, and Virgil is burning up phers and T-shirt designers. 41, Virgil had shown clothing collec-
the streets and the internet with the DJ We are living in the era of the smart- tions on the runways of Louis Vuitton
collective turned brand, Been Trill, and phone revolution, and I’d argue that and artworks at Gagosian. His ideas
his upstart streetwear side hustle, Pyrex Virgil Abloh is the iPhone’s definitive had a touring museum show. His
Vision. Backstage, Caramanica tells and most iconic user. Everything he memorial service was held at the
Virgil that he copped some gear online accomplished came spinning out of Museum of Contemporary Art in his
but never received it. So, Caramanica that phone. He used it to smash glass beloved Chicago.
jokes, what’s up with the order fulfill- ceilings and as a portal through which He was born a creative. Made him-
ment? Abloh throws his hands up in an the young aspirants who worshipped self into an artist. And died an icon.
enthusiastic and unapologetic shrug him could watch the algorithms of his Showing that you and I can create our
and exclaims, “We sell ideas!” processes work. His number is like own destinies, too. What could be a
History will likely remember Virgil Jordan’s 23 but for modern creativity, greater gift to the world than that?
as a fashion designer, but even after and I think it should be retired in the
he’d built Off-White into a multimillion- rafters of the Met.
dollar global fashion business and put The other thing Virgil gave to
in a groundbreaking and wildly suc- everyone he encountered was a pos- Will Welch
cessful tenure of nearly four years at itive, uplifting, confidence-inspiring GLOBAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

1 6 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
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 28
WA
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OPENING PHOTOGR APH: GROOMING, MELISSA DEZ AR ATE FOR OMOROVICZ A SKINCARE AND KEVIN MURPHY HAIRCARE. FOLLOWING PHOTOGR APHS, THE NORTH FACE X
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AC TO
TIV
YO ATE E
UR B
RO
RD
WA
High fashion
has never been
more influenced THE NEW
ATHLETICWEAR
by athletics, Seven Strong (pictured
and workout here) and his Supreme-
gear has never sponsored compatriots
know better than anyone
looked more fly. that skatewear has
We’ve got proof. gone luxury. And now
By SAMUEL HINE luxury—beefy Fendi
Men’s cashmere sweat
suits included—is right
at home at the skate
park, gym, and running
trail (pullover, $4,400;
pants, $5,200).

P H O T O G R A P H B Y M A R T I N B R O W N
S T Y L E D B Y J O N T I E T Z F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 1 9
 CROPPED
CONCEPTUAL TACTICAL TIGHTS WINDBREAKER
CLOGS Get in early on the Emporio Armani’s
Kiko Kostadinov’s next frontier of street athleticwear line, EA7,
bouncy, rubber-soled style—men in tights— brings Mr. Armani’s
clogs set a new standard in with A-Cold-Wall’s famous sense of
fashionably ugly footwear functional, futuristic proportion and drape
(price upon request). leggings (price upon to your local Equinox
request). (price upon request).

THE SMARTEST GOLD MEDAL

WATCH JOGGERS
The Garmin Venu 2 Like Timothée Chalamet,
Plus has all the biometric the prince of track pants,
capabilities of your these Isabel Marant
favorite running watch, joggers are casual, cool,
including a stress and kind of French ($585).
tracker, plus the ability
to make phone calls and
switch on smart home
devices ($450).

TOP TRAINERS
Brooks’s chunky silver
dad shoes might be
making a comeback,
but don’t sleep on
the Launch 9, packed
with no-nonsense
performance for fast
runners (Brooks
A NEW GYM SCENT Running, $110).
Most post-workout
deodorant smells
like the stuff sprayed
ROCKY SET in high school locker MAJOR SHORTS
Vancouver’s Reigning rooms; OffCourt’s How do you make the
Champ handcrafts products smell instead most stylish gear
sweats in Canada with like sophisticated for tennis, the most
the same meticulous colognes ($11). stylish sport? Jacques
detail you’d normally updates the all-white
find in a finely tailored Wimbledon wardrobe
suit (hoodie, $175; with sleek gridded nylon
sweatpants, $160). fabric and nifty layered
tights ($145).

CAMPFIRE
SHORTS
With breathable, quick-
HAUTE GYM BAG drying fabric and a chill
Even Saint Laurent’s abstract camo pattern,
skinny-suited Parisian these Snow Peak
club rats need to hit shorts are designed for
the gym every so often long hikes, campfire
(Saint Laurent hangs, beach days, and
by Anthony bodega runs alike ($175).
Vaccarello, $1,090).

FABULOUS FAN
GEAR
This season, Phipps
bedazzled vintage sports
jerseys—from bad boys
like Dennis Rodman and
Ricky Williams—to create
one-of-a-kind upcycled
runway pieces (price
upon request).

2 0 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
LEATHER JERSEY REVERSIBLE FEATHERWEIGHT
If your taste in Miami BELT BAG CAP
Dolphins jerseys veers Eastpak continues At 1 ounce, this slick
toward the exotic, its run of killer high- SOUTHPAW Janji running hat is
Sacai’s version of the fashion capsules by SHORTS practically weightless.
NFL’s coolest unis, crafted linking up with MM6 Ball like Rocky Marciano But the best feature might
out of perforated leather, Maison Margiela in Dolce & Gabbana’s be the foam brim, which
is for you ($1,085). for a line of reversible louche satin tricolore flips up for extra style
nylon packs ($125). boxing shorts ($1,095). points on the trail ($38).

ADVANCED
WINDBREAKER
Ambush designer
Yoon Ahn rediscovered
A COLLECTIBLE the great outdoors
COLLAB during Japan’s COVID-19
Awake NY’s Angelo lockdown, leading to the
Baque has been steadily development of Ambush
turning out big heaters Wksp, a line of street
in collaboration with style–ready technical
Asics, like this limited- nylon garments (price
edition Gel-Kayano upon request).
Trainer 21 that’s sure to
sell out as soon as it hits
shop floors ($170).

ODOR-FIGHTING
TOP SPEEDY SHADES
Tracksmith’s Run, hike, and stunt in
temperature-regulating, Prada Linea Rossa’s
odor-impervious super-speedy oversized
RECYCLED merino tops are wool nylon-fiber wraparound
RUNNING SET sweaters made for sunglasses ($346).
Parisian label True your daily run ($84).
Tribe’s athleticwear
sets are all made out

“CAMO” PANTS
Last year’s The
North Face x Gucci
STATUS SYMBOL collaboration became SICK SNOWBOARD
YOGA BALL an instant hit with style Fans of Burton’s
For its first foray into lords like A$AP Rocky. punk-ish apparel line
luxury gym equipment, The second installment, Analog can now strap on
Dior partnered with the which includes these a snowboard as versatile
Dior of fitness systems: landscape-patterned and fun as the label’s
Italy’s Technogym, which climbing pants, is sure to Gore-Tex jackets and
outfitted the Tokyo land with an even bigger pants ($530).
Olympic facilities with splash ($1,380).
its treadmills, weights,
and exercise balls (price
upon request).

ENLIGHTENED
SALMON SHORTS
L E BRON’S BUDS
Consider these laid-back
Enter the gym like
French terry sweat
you’re walking through
shorts by Alo the chiller
the NBA tunnel with
version of the brand’s
the latest collaborative TECHNICAL
yoga tights, which have
Powerbeats Pro buds, BUCKET
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courtesy of Beats Canadian cult running
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heading to Erewhon ($78).
(Beats x NBA x Better hats—five-panels,
Gift Shop, $250). buckets, everything
but berets—that are as
breathable, washable, and
packable as your favorite
running shorts ($70).

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 2 1
 GQ World
Fashion

How Kamaru Usman—a

scrawny Nigerian kid who
migrated to Texas—became
the UFC’s mightiest pound-
for-pound champion.
B y C H R I S G AYO M A L I

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Dangerous

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y A N D R E D . W A G N E R
2 2 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 S T Y L E D B Y M O B O L A J I D A W O D U
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 NE OF THE things that But Kamaru Usman’s real best
separates Kamaru punch is actually his jab, which
GQ World
Fashion O Us m a n — t h e U F C
welterweight cham-
he can throw with either hand and
might be the best jab in all of mixed
pion and number one martial arts: precise, off-rhythm,
pound-for-pound in the world—from rangy, with the percussive power of a
other fighters is the sublime efficiency train piston behind it. It juts out with
of his tool kit. Take his second-scariest zero tell, like a cuckoo from a broken
punch: the right cross. clock. Most fighters use their jabs
He landed a big one last year on to probe, to distract, to set up other,
Jorge Masvidal to close out their sec- more damaging follow-up blows. But
ond UFC fight. The shot was the result the thing about Kamaru is that he can
of a hand trap that Kamaru had been also finish you with his jab—as he
meticulously plotting since the first did in a title defense last year against
round, in which he used his left hand Gilbert Burns, a former training
to yank Jorge’s right arm away from partner, whose neck is as thick as a
his head, and when the cross was fire hydrant. Kamaru’s southpaw jab
deployed, Kamaru really committed squeaked in between Gilbert’s guard
and threw all his weight behind it, and snapped his head back, causing
stepping through the punch like he him to fall onto his backside, where
was the Kool-Aid Man and there were he was soon finished. makes it fun,” says Trevor Wittman,
thirsty children on the other side. The thing is: Kamaru isn’t even Kamaru’s coach of almost two years,
The setup was flawlessly executed. really known as a striker. For a who is known in MMA circles as a
Beautiful math. The punch cracked long time he was known mostly as cheery Yoda. “There’s so much you
poor Jorge so hard that his body went a wrestler who would rag doll his can do with the fundamentals that
limp and the sweat from his brow opponents around the cage like a takes years and years and years to
flung itself into the air and instantly labradoodle given a chew toy. His understand. A lot of people go out
phase-changed into a cloud of ghostly jab is instructive because it illus- and they work on these fancy moves
vapor. On television the effect resem- trates who he is: devastatingly effec- that will hardly ever work. They’re
bled something like a spirit leaving its tive, yet incomplete. “It’s not like his very easy to see. But if you sit there,
corporeal form, ascending to heaven. jab is mastered yet, and that’s what and you polish, and you focus on
fundamentals, and you continue to
drill them, you become a master at
the fundamentals. And that’s what
makes world champions.”
Which is what Kamaru is: a world
champion. But he’s more than that,
at this point. Twenty wins in 21
bouts, the last six being title fights
against the scariest welterweights
on earth. He’s beaten everyone nota-
ble in his division—a few of them
twice already. He’s a cerebral tacti-
O P E N I N G PA G E
Hoodie,
cian and a sui generis athlete who
$1,900, and doesn’t get tired; an All-American
pants, $1,830, collegiate wrestler who’s never
by Prada. been taken down. He even entered
His own watch his most recent rematch against
and necklace
Colby Covington, the closest thing
(third
from top) he’s had to a true rival, with a slight
from Happy handicap: Kamaru broke his right
Jewelers. hand three weeks before the fight.
Necklace Couldn’t even punch with it during
(top), $56,000, training camp. “I didn’t throw the
and ring
(on pinkie),
right until fight night, so that’s why
$5,900, by the timing was off with it,” says
Shay Jewelry. Kamaru, showing me his mangled
Necklace hand. His ring finger is swollen like
(second from an overboiled hot dog.
top), $45,000,
It’s a warm November evening
from Manhattan
Buyers Inc. just three days after the second
Necklace Covington fight, and we’re eating
(bottom), dinner at a fancy French brasserie
$140,800, in Lower Manhattan. Kamaru hasn’t
bracelet, had a drink in eight, nine months, he
$400,000, and
estimates, but decides to celebrate
ring (on
ring finger), and order a Casamigos margarita.
$150,000, In person he’s a modest six feet and
by Jacob & Co. wears a mustard yellow beanie with
 GQ World
Fashion

O P P O S I T E PA G E,
TOP
Shirt, $1,395,
by Dolce &
Gabbana.
Tank top, $42
for pack
of three, by
Calvin Klein
Underwear.
Pants, $340,
by Homme
Plissé Issey
Miyake.
Shoes, $195,
by Sabah.
Watch, $4,100,
by Cartier.
Necklace,
$45,000,
from Manhattan
Buyers Inc.
Bracelet,
$400,000,
by Jacob & Co.
Ring,
$6,200, by
Tiffany & Co.

O P P O S I T E PA G E,
BOTTOM
Pullover,
$525, and
shorts, $395,
by Paul Smith.
Shoes, $195,
by Sabah.
Sunglasses,
$490, by
Ahlem. Watch,
$32,000, by
Cartier.
Necklace,
$3,800,
bracelet,
$11,900, and
ring (on right
hand), $4,960,
by Shay
a green letterman jacket bearing his striker (that would be his friend and somehow newer and nastier version Jewelry. Ring
nickname, The Nigerian Nightmare. Nigerian brother Israel Adesanya) or of himself with every scrap. His abil- (on left hand),
$3,850, by
Underneath is a black Gym King tee the hardest hitter (his Cameroonian ity to level up is unreal. The most
O Thongthai.
that hugs his biceps so snugly it’s as brother Francis Ngannou) or even the dumbfounding thing about Kamaru
if a full-size sheet got pulled over a best grappler (the recently retired is you get the sense he’s still nowhere
T H I S PA G E
queen-size bed. Despite having just Khabib Nurmagomedov, another near his ceiling. Robe, $450,
fought in a caged death match a few close friend). But he’s pretty fucking “For me, it’s like I haaave to by Missoni.
nights ago, his face is immaculate, as great at nearly everything, and puts improve,” says Kamaru. To be at Turtleneck,
if he was barely touched. it all together in a way that makes the same level he was yesterday or, $197, and
Fighting, particularly in MMA, him one of the most complete fight- God forbid, a tiny bit worse, both- pants, $670,
by Botter.
is an endless series of internal flow- ers we’ve seen, perhaps ever, on a ers him to no end. Ordinarily this
Belt, $195,
charts that athletes are computing in tier with names like Jon Jones and would strike as a typical athlete cli- by Paul Smith.
real time. You’re throwing kicks and Georges St-Pierre. ché. With Kamaru, though, you feel His own watch
punches and feints, gauging reac- Aside from his battles with like it really does manifest as a deep, from Happy
tions, reacting to reactions of reac- Covington, none of Kamaru’s fights almost puerile annoyance; the guy is Jewelers.
tions of reactions while trying to not have been particularly close. His a little monastic and can be unusually Necklace,
$45,000, and
get hit yourself, all within fractions only loss was in 2013—his second hard on himself. Trevor Wittman says
bracelet,
of a second. In the sport, Kamaru is pro fight ever—and since then we’ve sometimes he’ll walk into the facility $20,000, from
something of an oddity. He might seen him not only dominate nearly in Denver where they train as Kamaru Manhattan
not be the most dynamic active every opponent but emerge as a is warming up, and everything Buyers Inc.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 2 5
 will be quiet. “I’ ll be like, ‘Hey,
how come we don’t got your music
GQ World
on?’ ” says Wittman. “And he’s like,
Fashion ‘I don’t get music today.’ It’s just funny
that he’s one of those guys that will
discipline himself, be truthful to it,
and not waste any time.”
It’s a funny thing, being the best in
the world. Definitionally, it’s lonely at
the top, rarefied air. The big question
now facing Kamaru is: What does
progress look like once you’ve seem-
ingly reached the summit—and left a
trail of broken bodies in your wake?
If you’re him, it means inventing new
challenges. It means locating harder,
more dangerous mountains to scale—
searching for situations where things
can go wrong.

S H O U L D Y O U E V E R look up Auchi,
Nigeria, on Wikipedia—before you
get to the sections on language and
geography—you will notice a brief
yet important line right near the very
top: “UFC Welterweight Champion,
Kamaru Usman was born in Auchi.”
His father, Muhammed, wasn’t
around much when he was a kid
growing up there; Dad was already
in the States, building out his ambu-
lance business in Texas. The Usman
kids mostly knew him as a disem- Cold Steve Austin,” says Kamaru. “So unlocked. Elation. “I remember that
bodied voice who’d sometimes rep- I’m like, ‘Nah. I’m not trying to get day I was walking home, I was like,
rimand them on the phone should hit with chairs.’ ” ‘I learned something. I actually
they step out of line with their The wrestling coach left the door learned something.’ I worked through
mother. “We knew we had a dad,” open for Kamaru to join. One thing it, and I learned.”
T H I S PA G E
Shirt, $930, Kamaru remembers of those early led to another, Kamaru showed up And that girl? Turns out she
and shorts, years. “I just couldn’t picture his for practice, and he was immediately was a three-time state champion.
$1,050, by face as a kid.” placed into a small group to rumble. “I’m sure she tells the story now,” he
Salvatore When Kamaru was eight, “Mine was a group of four,” he adds. says, laughing.
Ferragamo. Muhammed brought the family “And we had a girl.” As a wrestler, Kamaru Usman
Sneakers,
to Arlington, Texas. This girl, as he tells it, “just fucked became obsessed and rose through
$395, by Paul
Smith. Watch, Young Kamaru played the trum- us up. Took me down. Slammed me. the ranks quickly. Watched a ton of
$32,000, by pet. “I was one of those dudes where Put me in moves I didn’t even know. videos. Just worked his tail off, inter-
Cartier. I could be first chair any given day,” I couldn’t get away. I didn’t know what nalizing lessons from his coaches,
Necklace, he says. Smooth jazz is still his favor- to do.” After getting mauled all prac- and within a few years fashioned
$3,800, and ite genre of music, though he’s a big tice, young Kamaru made the long himself into an NCAA All-American
rings, $4,960
(on left hand)
fan of Afrobeats and counts Nigerian walk home feeling humiliated. “It at the University of Nebraska at
and $3,950 (on artists like Wizkid and Burna Boy was such a humbling experience,” he Kearney. “He is so damn coachable,”
right hand), by among his friends. Throughout says. “And it messed with me so much. Wittman tells me. “Fighters are very
Shay Jewelry. middle school he played football, When I was walking home, the only selfish. They’re very driven with ego.
but then he entered high school and thing I could think about was”—and But the guy listens to everything I say,
O P P O S I T E PA G E
suddenly found himself in the pre- here he flashes a grin—“ ‘I’m going to and that’s something you don’t find a
Shirt (price
upon request) carious position of being undersized. fuck that girl up tomorrow.’ ” lot in this industry.”
by Versace. “My freshman year, I was five foot So he went in the next day, furious In 2010 his father was convicted
Tank top, $42 two, 103 pounds,” he says. One day at and determined to do better, except: on multiple criminal charges related
for pack of practice he got trucked pretty hard by “She whooped my ass. And I came to his businesses, including health
three, by a much bigger kid, and “that was the back [the next day], she whooped care fraud—charges that the Usmans
Calvin Klein
end of my football career.” my ass again.” dispute to this day. (Muhammed was
Underwear.
Pants, $822, On a particularly hot morning This went on for a long while— sent to prison and recently released
by Botter. during marching band practice, three, four weeks of getting straight early for good behavior.) “All my life
Belt, $195, Kamaru snuck into the school to get bodied by this girl. Then one day I was kind of put in a position to not
by Paul Smith. a drink at the water fountain, where Kamaru finally managed to not depend on my dad,” Kamaru has said.
Sandals, he was caught by a wrestling coach. totally suck: He snagged her in a “I was never one of those kids to say,
$1,495, by
Dolce &
They struck up a conversation, and move he’d just learned, a headlock, ‘My dad doesn’t love me because he
Gabbana. the coach asked him if he’d consid- and somehow he was able to hold didn’t come to my wrestling meet.’
Watch, $6,050, ered giving wrestling a shot. “At this her there. The coaches smiled at him I knew who my dad was, and I knew
by Omega. point we’ve been watching like Stone from across the room. Achievement he loved me.”

2 6 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 Truth is, his parents didn’t even ‘Hey, respect is the most important “Because I’m pound-for-pound,
know he wrestled his first two years thing,’ when they can be superrich I want to prove it. No matter what
GQ World
of high school. Kamaru hadn’t both- and famous like Conor?” weight it is, I thought he was a really
ered telling them. “Because you know Most fighters look for new chal- good matchup for me.” Fashion
parents: ‘You’re going to be a doctor. lenges by moving up a weight class. For the time being, though, it’s a
You’re going to be this. You’re going to But Kamaru insists he’ ll never battle that remains theoretical. In
be that,’ ” Kamaru tells me. “So I hid fight Israel Adesanya, his Nigerian October, Blachowicz lost his world
it from them until my mom caught brother who currently lords over title in an upset to Glover Teixeira,
me on TV. I was wrestling in the city the middleweight division. Instead, putting any would-be Kamaru
finals on local television, and she saw Kamaru says he spent a chunk of last challenge on hold. Still, Kamaru
me. I came home, and she was telling year contemplating something more remains intrigued—and unfazed.
my dad and screaming.” radical: moving up two whole weight Never mind the fact that Blachowicz
To his great surprise, Mom wasn’t classes to light heavyweight—basi- is bigger, stronger, more powerful.
even mad: “It was like, ‘Did you see cally unheard of in MMA—to fight “I think I would beat him,” he tells me
our son? He was on television!’ ” a much, much larger man in Jan matter-of-factly.
Blachowicz for that title. And if he loses? At least he’ ll
ALL THE GREAT ones need a foil, “I was going to skip Israel and have opened up a whole new world
someone who challenges them to be go fight Jan at 205 [pounds],” says of scary challenges for himself.
the best version of themselves, and Kamaru, suddenly animated. Even And for Kamaru, nothing could be
The reigning
for Kamaru Usman, that counter- discussing the prospect of tangling more thrilling.
welterweight champ,
weight is Covington, who exists as with a giant grizzled Polish guy photographed at
a kind of turbocharged, shit-talking who outweighs him by 40 pounds chris gayomali is a gq UFC Gym SoHo in
MAGA heel. has Kamaru basically salivating. articles editor. New York City.
With similar wrestling bona fides
and relentless cardio, Covington has
become a great yang for the more
soft-spoken Kamaru’s yin. But he has
antagonized Kamaru with threats that
have veered into racism—or at the
very least made it seem as if Covington
was blowing a dog whistle the size of a
sousaphone. He has said that Usman
comes from a “little tribe” that uses
“smoke signals,” and he refers to
Kamaru as “Marty” (the name given
to him by a white wrestling coach who
couldn’t pronounce his name).
I suggest to Kamaru that Covington
is able to say stuff that no Black athlete
could ever get away with.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “But he
has to do that. He doesn’t have the
luxury to just be himself, like I am.”
Why do you think that is?
“I mean, he created a monster, you
know? He started telling everyone,
‘Well, I’m playing a character because
they were going to cut me.’ He wanted
to break it. He wanted to drop it. But
he just couldn’t. People already hated
him. Now it’s like, you got to double
down and lean into it if you are ever
going to make money in this sport.”
At the end of your last fight, he
seemed to briefly break character
finally. What did he say to you?
“I couldn’t really hear, but he was
a real person. He was a genuine per-
son. And I was like, ‘Oh, shit.’ ” A few
minutes later, Covington was back to
talking shit in a press conference.
Kamaru is not a fan of the UFC’s
recent oscillation toward pro wres-
tling cartoonishness, where a big
mouth means bigger money. “Conor
McGregor is a perfect example,” he
says. “Completely ignore the respect
aspect and you get super famous.
How do you tell these kids nowadays,
 GQ World
What You
Fitness Can Learn
From the
Ageless
Athlete
A wellness revolution
in pro sports has
allowed stars like
LeBron James, Tom
Brady, and Novak
Djokovic to continue
to dominate into
(relative) old age. GQ
fitness columnist Joe
Holder breaks down
the moves you can
steal for yourself.

LEBRON JAMES: OLDER, ROCKY WIDNER/NBAE/GET T Y IMAGES; YOUNGER, STEVE GRAYSON/WIREIMAGE; HANDS, GARY DINEEN/NBAE/GET T Y IMAGES.

2 8 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
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 GQ World
Fitness

outliers, or veterans transitioning into supporting

roles. It’s a sports-wide revolution.
And you may have heard about the out-there things
they’re doing to maintain their bodies: Brady has so

often

flexibility and mobility need work

every day, whether it’s a circuit
in the gym, Pilates, yoga, or just a
quick stretch before bed.
 Opening page:
LeBron James in
high school at GQ World
18 and this season
with the Lakers at Fitness
36. These pages,
clockwise from top
left: Phil Mickelson,
now 51, Serena
Williams (40), Chris
Paul (36), Tom Brady
(44), Tiger Woods
(46), and Cristiano
Ronaldo (36).

after games are long gone. It’s a league-wide trend that you that goal going
You don’t have an off-season, may have heard referred to as to be for you?
but the point is the same: Creating “load management.” Maybe it’s running
a healthy—and, most of all, We can apply this mindset to our half marathons
consistent—approach to food is lives: It’s okay to take breaks. People for the next 20 years,
more powerful than supplements are running out of gas from having or maybe it’s getting
or on-again-off-again dieting. It to always be on—look no further through a workday without
can be tempting to think of food as than the record rate at which people back pain. I like to think
a reward you get for working out. have quit their jobs over the past of lengthening not my life span
But it’s better to treat food as an two years. I’m not saying we should but my health span—my time
PHIL MICKELSON: BRIAN ROTHMULLER/ICON SPORTSWIRE. SERENA WILLIAMS: ADAM
P R E T T Y. C H R I S PAU L : B I L L B A P T I ST/ N B A E . TO M B R A DY: J I M R O G A S H . T I G E R WO O D S :

integral part of your larger wellness never be stressed. In fact, elite on earth in good physical
picture. Figure out what you want athletes are experts at using stress condition. Whatever it is, use
your food to do for you and design to their advantage—because they that for motivation to get to
WARREN LITTLE. CRISTIANO RONALDO: CLIVE ROSE. ALL: GETTY IMAGES.

an eating strategy around that. know it’s stress plus recovery that the gym, to do those stretches
Here’s a place to start: Try to simply creates growth. So put in some big when you wake up, to cook some

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 3 1
 Nadal by developing a tourbillon
Introducing weighing 30 grams that the cham-
GQ World our new watch
columnist, pion can wear on court during Grand
Watches Nick Slams. Given that Mille watches
Foulkes are not named but known by serial
numbers (this is the RM 027-04), it is
much easier to remember it by Nadal’s
name. And it has certainly stuck:
How Do There is also a piece called the Baby
Nadal, which is, ironically, somewhat
You Make larger than its parent model.
Timepieces made by Richard Mille
an Iconic are perfect for the modern sports star:
readily identifiable, hard to come by,
Watch? Put It expensive, and exuberantly contem-
porary in styling. Audemars Piguet’s
on an Iconic pumped up Royal Oak Offshore model
enjoys similar standing among elite
Athlete athletes. The names Shaquille O’Neal,
LeBron James, Rubens Barrichello,
Without Jean-Claude Killy, the and Juan Pablo Montoya have been
Rolex Dato-Compax would just given to specific Offshores, anchor-

RAFAEL NADAL: SHAUN BOT TERILL. PAUL NEWMAN: RON GALELL A/RON GALELL A COLLECTION. NINA RINDT: LEONARD BURT/CENTRAL PRESS. ALL: GET T Y IMAGES.
be reference 6236, says GQ watch ing them firmly in the collectors’
columnist Nick Foulkes. mind and setting them aside from the
tsunami of limited, numbered, and
REALIZED THAT HOR- whose names have come to be asso- otherwise special editions that the
ological nomenclature ciated with Rolex models that now Le Brassus brand puts out each year.
I was getting out of hand
when I was told that
fetch astronomical prices at auction.
But for a brand predominantly
But my favorite watch of all these
is not actually named after an athlete
the primrose-dial Rolex associated with sports watches, there at all but after his widow. Finnish-
Oyster Perpetual had a nickname. One is just one sporting name linked with born model Nina Rindt was mar-
of the hot quintet of candy-colored a particular Rolex: the Killy, which ried to Formula 1 racing champion
dial watches the Crown issued in refers to the Rolex Dato-Compax
2020, it’s got a playful personality. chronograph worn by French Alpine
Yet I was unable to keep a straight ski champion Jean-Claude Killy.
face when a collector friend told (The skier himself preferred a refer-
me that the yellow watch is called ence 6236, but the name has stuck
the Pikachu. to the whole family of Dato-Compax
Rolex is particularly rich in infor- timepieces.) The Killy, especially the
mal shorthand, bestowed by fans and 6236, is a great watch: Its 36-mm case
collectors. There’s an entire extended houses an antimagnetic 12-hour chro-
universe of cartoon characters in the nograph and a triple calendar, and as
brand’s ranks: Smurf, Kermit, Hulk, a congenital contrarian I would argue
Batman, and Batgirl. There are soft that it is far more chic than the Paul
From top: drinks: Coke, Pepsi, and root beer. Newman chronograph. Nevertheless,
Paul Newman, Even cigarettes: The John Player the Paul Newman is much more
Nina Rindt,
Special refers to a black-and-gold famous (and expensive).
and Rafael
Nadal wearing Daytona. And, most famously, there Sports personalities are among
their signature are the film stars like Paul Newman, the most frequently employed brand
watches. Steve McQueen, and Marlon Brando, ambassadors, so why are their names Jochen Rindt, who tragically died
not more widely bandied about in at Monza in 1970. Rindt, arguably
auction catalogs and the like? There the most glamorous woman in the
is no single model known to collec- Grand Prix pit lane at the time, was
tors as the Federer, the Sir Jackie often photographed wearing a Panda-
Stewart, or the Beckham, despite Dial Universal Genève Compax that
their penchant for certain Rolex, her husband had given her. It’s not
and, in the case of Beckham, Tudor, as catchy as Pikachu, but the Nina
watches. Paradoxically, the answer Rindt moniker stuck, and today you
might well be that sports are such can thank her for raising the value
an expected part of horological mar- of these handsome Universals to the
keting these days. Killy was a Rolex level of trophy chronos made by the
ambassador well before the age of likes of Rolex and Omega. So to all
Instagram ad campaigns, after all. the glamorous F1, NBA, and football
Today, for a sports personality to stars—and their wives—that are read-
become firmly rooted in horological ing this: Get yourself a sporty time-
culture, it takes not just athletic excel- piece and wear it until your name
lence and longevity but actual close sticks. Maybe that way the next watch
involvement with the brand. Richard we lust after won’t be called the Diet
Mille scored a bull’s-eye with Rafael Dr. Pepper—or the Papa Smurf.
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 GQ World
Essay

What Three
Decades of
NBA Heroes

Taught Me
SOURCE PHOTOGRAPH: FOCUS ON SPORT/GET T Y IMAGES.

About Modern
Masculinity

Sean Thor Conroe was 11 years old

when his parents split, and as a young hooper
he naturally looked to Jordan as a father figure.
Then came Iverson, and Kobe. But it was the arrival
of a totally new kind of star—a player named
Stephen Curry—who inspired the greatest shift
yet in his approach to manhood.

3 4 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 I L L U S T R A T I O N B Y S I M O N A B R A N O W I C Z
 GQ World
Essay

REMEMBER THE DAY, And it worked! For a time. school. On my swagged-out, under-
just after my fam- It felt, too, that our connection went sized-but-belligerently-confident-
I ily moved from
Sacramento to Santa
deeper. At the height of Jordan’s career
his dad had been killed; in a very dif-
shoot-first point guard shit.
I remember it was senior night, late
Cruz, when my parents ferent way I felt like I’d also lost my in the season, and I went off, dropped
told me they were splitting and my dad. And in those middle school like 20. Already committed to play
dad was planning on moving out. years, as I grappled with that loss, I’d next year in college—Swarthmore.
One of my sisters got up and left. The internalize M.J.’s mindset. Everything Such a prima donna at this point. We
other started crying. I didn’t react at 100, life and death. I’d snap on team- were down a bunch with under two
all, though. Just sat there. Went, Okay mates in practice, demand everyone minutes left. I snapped and pulled
man. That’s what you interrupted me go hard all the time in this little rec up on three consecutive possessions,
for? Because I’d been out back, on the league I played in. I’d single-handedly and hit all three. Got us within one.
gravelly driveway of the cerebral- outscore the opposing team. Flip out The other team made one of two free
palsied woman my parents were the on coaches who couldn’t say shit to throws, or whatever, and we had one
live-in caretakers for, trying to get me. I remember one game that sea- more possession. Coach called time-
my jump shot right. I was 11 years son, I had this teammate Chris who out, drew up some shit. I was like,
old, and that was the moment I com- everyone called Chris Money. Had a Aite aite aite, whatever you say, bro.
mitted to really becoming a hooper. nice jump shot. Only he’d shoot from I don’t even know if I listened to the
I said, Do you! I got shots to shoot, wherever, whenever he got it, from the play. Because I was taking the shot.
the league to make! Then I laced up damn logo. I’d always freak out on him That was decided. Got the inbound,
my J’s and got back to it. in practice about it. Till one game, he went iso, did a couple A.I. crossovers,
And from that point on, I decided checks in during garbage time, I pass stepped back, and…clanged the shot.
I’d be my own dad. Or M.J. would be. him that shit, he’s open for a three, Back in the locker room, Coach
See, for a certain type of young boy stops, looks at me—dead-ass—and D., the taciturn assistant, tore me a
coming up without a dad around, it’s goes, “Sean, can I shoot it?” Kinda new one. Really uncharacteristically,
the top hooper whose swag we adopt, under his breath, but everyone could I remember. He was yelling in my face,
who teaches us how to be. And for me hear. The whole game stopped for a like, Oh, I’m Sean, it’s all about Me!
that was Jordan, even though he was sec. I remember thinking, after that, I remember yelling back at him, not
technically before my time. The years I might gotta chill. even staying for the post-game huddle.
of his double three-peat run, 1991– At this point, the Lakers were on Just grabbing my shit and dipping.
1998, coincided with my first seven their championship runs, but there Crying in the car on the way home
on this earth. But his shoes kept him was another king I was watching: with my mom and the woman she
around. From the minute I pulled up Iverson. Watching a young A.I. chip took care of in her wheelchair laugh-
to Sac, J’s were the thing. I’d mob up away at the Lakers’ dominance—for ing at me like what’s this fool on about.
to this spot in S.F. and wait in line for only one Finals game, granted, but I started turning away from the
the limited J drops Saturday morn- still—that did something. Seeing him game my sophomore year of college,
ings. Through high school, I’d accu- carry his team, get ’em to O.T., and just after I started reading The Jordan
mulate the Low II’s, the Fire Red III’s, then hit the dagger before stepping Rules. There were stories of M.J. flip-
the Military Blue IV’s, the Red Steel over Ty Lue—it was electric. ping out on teammates. Not passing
X’s, and the Flint XIII’s. As I entered high school and the rock to make sure he ended the
This was the early aughts, when started hooping for this AAU team game as the leading scorer. I read that
the Lakers were on a tear, but Jordan in San Jose, A.I. was the next player book in this secret ritual, on the bus to
was the ghost that loomed behind it whose swag I adopted. A.I. had the games at Johns Hopkins, Gettysburg,
all. He was the blueprint for Kobe’s answers. He shifted things. It was looking at this other view of the man
mamba mentality; their dynasty was no longer only about will. It was I’d been following for years. Reading
a continuation of Phil Jackson’s M.J.- also about flair. Those Reeboks. You that book I began to challenge my god.
tested triangle offense; their single sonned your opponent aestheti- And slowly prepared myself to take
three-peat would always be com- cally. With bravado, looking pretty. leave of the game.
pared to the Bulls’ two. M.J., as I saw Dripped out. Those clean braids, At the end of the season I quit
it, was the O.G. It was his mentality the headband, the arm sleeve. Hat the team to “focus fully on writing.”
I’d adopt. slanted, iced out, tall tee’d. That was In theory, I was going to shed that
I got this DVD box set with full- our shit: hitting the mall, hitting Foot M.J. attitude I’d adopted. But I actu-
game replays. I studied him. And M.J. Locker, getting those five-for-$20 ally just channeled that intensity
taught me about a certain kind of tees, half of ’em XL, the others XXL, in another direction: I moved off
masculinity: Overcome any obstacle so you could layer ’em. To match the campus, disconnected from school,
with focus and willpower. Do every- kicks, the New Era fitted cap. The disconnected from the team that
thing to the max. Take the last shot. Jordan Brand dog tag. (A.I. still oper- helped me get a full ride, wrote a self-
Push off the defender if ya gotta. You ated within M.J.’s iso mode, but less directed double-thesis plan the
hit six threes in a half, you shrug like, intensely. More playfully.) And I really school ended up not accepting.
I know, right? I don’t even know how. was on my young A.I. shit in high Before petulantly saying Fuck this

3 6 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 GQ World
Essay

and trying and failing to walk across over. And that shit is infectious. Let to it. A passed ball moves faster than a
country, then moving every two years, the ball fly, you’ll get it back. Watching dribbled one. Throw a pass down the
living in Oakland, in Humboldt, in their team this year, you got these guys whole damn court, you see someone.
this van I bought, in Philly, grinding who’ve been with him all this time; Then, once you’re in range, you shoot
in anonymity, working service jobs they’re all letting the game come to that shit. Seven seconds? How about
the next half-decade, self-righteous them, all doing his shimmy. one. Are you gonna lose the ball faster,
in my rejection of “the system.” I live in New York now, and at the in the short term, if you let it fly every
It would be almost seven years beginning of quarantine, I started chance you get? For sure. But as LaVar
of itinerant decline, terrible living hooping at this park in Harlem, down taught them, You’ll get it back. You
conditions, terrible diet, ruining the street from my spot. There was gotta trust that you will.
relationships by abusing stimulants only one court, so I’d get out there I fuck with my dad now. I called
and living nocturnally, letting my early mornings to get my shots up. In him the other day. He lives in Japan,
mind get disconnected from my body between pots of coffee and smokes. has the last nine years, where he
and my autoimmune skin condition Get just the right amount of sweat teaches English. But we’re good.
flare—scraping by just enough to going—thinking in motion—before I call him and make sure he’s okay.
keep writing—before a new superstar taking a cold shower and getting Growing up, he was an intense ide-
emerged who got me excited to lace back to it: the reading, the writing, alist, a thinker. A reaction, no doubt,
up those J’s and start hooping again. the smoking. to his own father’s militant discipli-
It was in 2015—I was living in But I’d always be reminded of narianism. My dad went the opposite
Oakland, with a woman for the first Stephen’s energy. There’d be this little way: nomadic, searching. When my
time, right after deciding to com- boy, Ali, probably 10 years old, who’d dad left our household to continue
plete my undergrad degree through a run up to me every time I pulled up his quest, I was drawn to M.J. because
his mode ran so counter to my dad’s.
Like my dad had to go the opposite
way of his dad’s. That’s just how it
It would be sweet if every boy goes sometimes.
could have a dad to guide them, I think I started to feel okay toward
him around the time I started hoop-
like Stephen had Dell and the Balls ing again. When I was able to take on
the teachings of new stars and apply
had LaVar. But some dads die, and them to my life. It would be sweet if
every boy could have a dad to guide
some dads dip, and sometimes them, like Stephen had Dell and the
you have to make your own father. Balls had LaVar. But some dads die,
and some dads dip, and sometimes
you have to make your own father.
And I still fuck with M.J. too. As
U.C. Extension program—that like, You’re back! Lemme shoot. He’d time passes, the intensity of his
Stephen Curry really emerged as a shoot an air ball, and then when mentality has taken on this renewed
full-fledged cultural superstar. I would shoot and make it, I’d be like significance for me. He taught me to
If you watch Stephen play, he’ll lay gimme my change—or gimme my keep going hard. I got an advance for
low. He doesn’t need to immediately respect, because in Harlem you say my book that just dropped, money
assert his will. He’ll sit tight, till it’s gimme my respect—and he’d be like, I coulda never imagined getting a
time. Then he’ll go off, end up with Nah, you don’t get no respect! And run year ago, and you know what I did?
30-plus and seven threes or whatever. off with the ball. Having fun with it Copped some J’s. Pollen I’s. Back to
Sometimes it feels like he gets almost but also derailing my whole routine. the beginning.
all his points in these short bursts. But nah. In those moments, I ask Because no matter what new
Ninety-second spurts near the end myself: What would Stephen do? If teachings you adopt, what new quests
of quarters. He stays present, locked the kid wanted to get some shots up, you embark on, however you shed
in, getting everyone going. Waiting I’d shoot some damn shots with him. and maybe even feel failed by the
till some feeling comes over, and then Looking ahead, I think the game original lessons you followed, they
lets it take over. You can feel it when is in good hands. The Ball broth- got you to where you are. Pay respect.
it starts happening. My man isn’t ers—Lonzo and LaMelo—are taking Toss some love to your old self. Keep
a mamba striking, isn’t young A.I. Stephen’s energy to another level. it moving. Trust that all the love you
carrying the whole load or LeBron What LaVar, the Ball patriarch who throw will come back around.
aggressively throwing no-look passes taught them to play, said to conven-
at teammates he’ll ship off at the end tional basketball wisdom was Fuck sean thor conroe is the author
of the season if they don’t consistently that. Fuck a possession. Sometimes of a novel, Fuccboi, out from Little,
convert. My man Stephen is dancing. you got it, other times you don’t. Brown in January. This is his first
Waiting for the Holy Spirit to take That’s just how it goes. You can’t cling story for gq.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 3 7
 The
unstoppable
guard helmed one
of the best offensive
teams in NBA
history. Two years
after that dynasty
fell apart, he’s
willing the Warriors
toward another
championship run—
and underlining BY HANIF
his claim as one of ABDURRAQIB
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
the game’s SHANIQWA JARVIS
STYLED BY
all-time greats. MOBOLAJI DAWODU

3 8 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 Green is back in his Defensive Player of the
Year form, even more cerebral than he was
before. Stephen Curry’s job, so far, has been
considerably easier.
In a greenroom inside the arena, Curry
settles into a chair. He’s older now, 33, but
doesn’t look worn down. There’s still a child-
like quality to him—he’s a thoughtful speaker,
and there’s often a grin creeping along the
edges of his mouth, like he’s just heard a
secret. He’s also stronger than he was, no lon-
ger the young player with a jersey sliding off
of his shoulders in his Davidson years or his
first few seasons in the NBA. The muscles in
his arms cut a clear outline through his black
hoodie as he puts a hand on his face to ponder
calm that hovers over the streets around placid demeanor. It seemed that he came to a a question. He holds this pose for several sec-
the Chase Center in San Francisco late on a realization in that moment. He was the only onds after I ask him about dynasties, and the
night when no basketball is being played is star left, fighting back against the inevita- challenges of reshaping a team for another
intoxicating. That is, until you walk inside. ble depletion of his team. And he was. The run, after over a decade in the league and just
That same calm gives way to an eeriness—the Warriors lost the finals. Durant was off to two seasons after it seemed like the torch was
space is cavernous and labyrinthian, hallways Brooklyn in the off-season. The pandemic being passed.
collapsing into hallways. A corner light flick- threw the league off course. Thompson tore “Well, as many good breaks as we got, we
ers in a series of hiccups. Music echoes from an Achilles before he even returned from the got kind of the same bad breaks,” he begins.
some undetermined distance. Following the ACL injury. Curry injured his hand. There “The injuries that took us to a pretty crazy
sounds, I’m led to a kind of makeshift sub- were those who said it was a good run. We free fall right before the pandemic. And it’s
terranean gym. Laughter rises from a group got a half-decade of greatness. No dynasty can weird because if you look at it in those two
of handlers, circled around Stephen Curry, last forever. years, it was tough to be patient and tough
who’s dressed as if he’s just finished a work- Yet there’s something remarkable brewing for me, just staying locked in and motivated.”
out. At his feet rest two 30-pound barbells in the Bay once again. The night before, there He pauses briefly, before running toward a
branded with the Golden State Warriors logo. was an NBA game here. The Raptors came closing thought: “And for us, that’s been the
A Warriors towel rests on his head. Drake’s to town and left with their 15th loss out of mental [block we’ve had to] unlock—stay-
Certified Lover Boy ricochets off the walls. the last 17 games they’ve played on Golden ing sharp, staying fresh, and appreciating
It’s here, in the belly of the Warriors’ State’s home floor. Curry didn’t have the kind the climb back to hopefully get back to the
arena, that Stephen Curry has diligently of game spectators have been accustomed top, and personally, I’ve just been riding that
remade himself and his team. And glimpsing to seeing him put together this season—he wave. Understand if you’re in this league long
him in this private lair, just before our inter- managed just 12 points on 2-10 shooting—but enough, hopefully you’ll experience many dif-
view, is like witnessing a superhero’s origin the Warriors still won, relatively comfortably. ferent things, many different narratives, and
story. Except it’s the sequel, the story of his This was a departure from last season, when you have to not reinvent your game, but just
rebirth. Our hero is better than before, the at times it felt like in order for the Warriors reinvent your focus on what’s the challenge
mythology more grandiose. In an instant, to be in a game, Curry had to maintain an ahead of you each year. And I feel like that’s
there’s a song shift. Once the beat drops on almost unsustainable level. been really a shock to the system
“You Only Live Twice,” Curry is newly ener- Almost unsustainable because, ←← these last two years.”
gized, grinning underneath the shadow of through the season, he somehow PREVIOUS PAGE The place the team finds itself
the towel, gesturing with his hands, shak- managed to sustain it. Those coat $2,750 in suits Curry. To have his squad
ing his head on beat. The song serves as heroics were both miraculous and hoodie $595 written off, only to bring them
pants $695
an appropriate anthem for a player in the a bit concerning. It felt, at times, roaring back as a newer, poten-
shoes $195
throes of a second NBA life, making the like one last flourish before the Fear of God tially better version of their old
impossible look easy in new ways. flame burned out entirely. Curry, selves. It all fits the overarching
ring (on left hand,
The first era of the modern Warriors dragging what some considered throughout), his own Curry mythology—that of the
dynasty was staggering: three championships to be a fading team along, uncon- perpetual underdog. It’s signifi-
ring (on right
and five straight finals. The 73-win season. cerned with the toll it might be hand, throughout) cantly more difficult to sell that
Curry breaking the single-season three-point taking on his body. $18,250 narrative now than it was when
record, then breaking it again (and again). But this is a new era of Warriors Established Curry was a scrawny kid firing
Then things began to crumble. There’s an basketball. As of now, Curry and away at Davidson, stitching
→
enduring image from late in the third quar- the Warriors have the best record together an upset run to the Elite
jacket $570
ter of the 2019 NBA finals. The Warriors are in the NBA, and they’ve made it Homme Plissé Eight. More difficult than when
down to the Raptors in the series, 3-2. But look both easy and fun. A youth- Issey Miyake he was battling ankle injuries
in the game itself, they’re up by three. Kevin ful energy has been infused into sweater $1,250 early in his NBA career. Indeed,
Durant had gone out with an injury the game the core of reliable stars. Young Saint Laurent by the idea of the underdog today
prior, and there is Klay Thompson, barely players like Jordan Poole have Anthony Vaccarello seems almost an invention, just
able to walk, being carried off of the court taken leaps. Still-youthful semi- pants $750 as Michael Jordan imagined
with what later would be diagnosed as a torn vets like Andrew Wiggins have Dunhill slights and pulled foes out of
ACL. A replay showed Curry slamming the further solidified roles as effec- watch $7,200 thin air. Curry smirks a bit when
ball in frustration, a rare crack in his usually tive two-way options. Draymond Hublot I ask, incredulously, about his

4 0 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 His is a game predicated on a series of small
escapes, running through slivers of space in
hopes of finding some larger sliver of space
on the other end. All of those things are hall-
marks of a beautiful game. But there’s also
a renewed physicality to what Curry does
on the court, a renewed commitment to
defense—something that haunted his play
in the earlier parts of his career.
Curry tells me that there’s a potential delu-
sion he’s in the throes of: the belief that he can
still get better, even though he knows there’s a
point where he’ll say that but won’t actually
feel it. He’s not there yet, though, he claims.
“There’s a level of insecurity that comes with
my personal experience of how I get ready for
a season,” Curry reveals. “I understand where
the bar is at and I’ve got to keep raising it. So
that level of insecurity drives me, because it’s
three months where you’re thinking about
how do you get better?”
In the words of his current coach, Steve Kerr,
much of Curry’s constant evolution revolves
around how he has taken care of his body
and improved it. He’s still gaining muscle—
he reportedly added five pounds over the
off-season—as well as refining his power, his
speed, and his quickness. That more muscular
frame, Kerr says, has changed Curry’s ability to
be dangerous from everywhere. “From when
I arrived here seven years ago, there’s been a
huge difference,” Kerr tells me over the phone.
“He’s built his body in a way that impacts how
he can finish at the rim, how he can get into
the paint, and get through screens. And it’s
also helped him on defense. He’s an excellent
defender. This stigma has remained from early
in his career that he’s a weak defender, and
I would just ask anyone to watch him night
to night.” This bears out statistically. At the
time of this writing, Curry is in the midst of
the greatest defensive season he’s ever had,
commitment to this underdog status. “I’ve that only a couple of guys were watching posting his highest defensive rating since he’s
failed at explaining what it feels like,” he him.” McKillop waits a beat before the reveal. entered the league (97.8) and also averaging a
says. “But I still carry that one thousand per- “And he was awful. He threw the ball into the career-high 5.6 rebounds per game.
cent, because I have a long-term memory of stands, he dropped passes, he dribbled off his Despite being one of the game’s greatest
everything that it took and everything I’ve foot, he missed shots. But never once during superstars, Curry remains something of an
been through to get here.” that game did he blame an official, or point a outlier in today’s NBA, situated largely out-
finger at a teammate. He was always cheering side the fraternity of stars that operate with
CURRY’S COACH AT Davidson, Bob McKillop, from the bench, he looked in his coaches eyes, a public off-court kinship. That’s partly due
is one of the few people who can remember and he never flinched. That stuck with me.” to the aforementioned underdog status that
when Curry truly was an underdog. He was McKillop is talking, in part, about the defined his youth and college career. He
a three-star recruit who was all but ignored intangibles that Curry has always had. But didn’t play on the high-profile AAU teams
by Division I colleges, most notably Virginia there are parts of his game he’s reinvented, or build up the kind of relationships and
Tech—alma mater of his NBA-famous father, too, just as anyone does who plays long rivalries that can define players before they
Dell, and the school Curry had eyed for him- enough and is committed to playing lon- even enter the league. This hasn’t prevented
self. Davidson was one of the only schools to ger. Curry still refers to himself as a “late Curry from forming certain narratives with
offer Curry a scholarship, a choice the program bloomer,” and when he does, he’s speaking his competitors, of course. His prolonged
made because of his resiliency, McKillop says. of both then and now—a game that is still contest with LeBron James is now one of the
“We went to see him play in Vegas in an AAU evolving. The beauty that has always been great sports duels of our era, one that added
tournament the summer before his senior present in his game still remains. Not just yet another chapter late last season, when
year,” McKillop tells me. “He played in one of the shots themselves, the miracle heaves over James hit a three-pointer over Curry’s out-
the auxiliary gyms, not the main gym. There a forest of arms, or the wide-open effortless stretched arms in the dwindling moments of
were very few people at the game, and even flicks that look good even while still ascend- the play-in game that would send the Lakers
fewer coaches. I felt pretty good knowing ing. But also the beauty in Curry’s movement. into the playoffs.

4 2 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
THESE PAGES
sweater-vest $542
Wooyoungmi
shorts $517
Bianca Saunders
sneakers $150
Curry Brand
socks $65
Missoni
watch $28,900
Vacheron
Constantin
 Curry looks upon the James rivalry almost that have waxed and waned throughout with Seattle and then Orlando. Hakeem
with a sense of wonder, sometimes reminisc- their clashes. He shrugs, matter-of-factly. Olajuwon winding down with Toronto. Curry
ing about the early stages of their relation- “But it’s real, though.” has signed on for four more years with the
ship. During the 2008 NCAA Tournament, it Warriors, which would take him to age 38.
was James, then in his fifth season with the CURRY COUNTS CHRIS PAUL as a mentor, In theory, he could go the route of Ewing or
Cavs, who took a pilgrimage to Detroit to see too, but is largely ambivalent about socializ- Olajuwon, but it seems unlikely. He’s embed-
Curry play in person. “I was a sophomore ing with anyone except his teammates, “my ded himself in the community here. “When I
in college and LeBron was coming to my guys,” as he calls them—players he has spent got drafted to Golden State, my grandma had
games!” Curry says with a sense of lingering the majority of his career around, building no idea what city it was in,” Curry says with
disbelief. “I actually still have the jersey he the culture of a single franchise. Which leads a laugh. “Everyone on the East Coast thinks
gave me. He signed a jersey for me. I think to another example of Curry’s uniqueness L.A. is all of California.”
that was November of my junior year. On in today’s NBA. The player who stays on Upon his arrival, Curry instantly fell in
my wall at my parents’ house in Charlotte, one team for his entire career has begun to love with the team, the Bay, its fans. Contrary
it’s still there. And he wrote it to me, called feel like a relic, given how many players hop to the belief that every Golden State Warriors
me the king of basketball in North Carolina. from team to team pursuing championships, fan arrived just in time to bask in the hey-
So I guess it’s like the corny idols-become- or simply become late-career journeymen, day of the team’s championship era, there
rivals thing.” He pauses here, almost as if playing their final, largely ineffective years was a long-suffering but devoted legion that
he’s stepping outside of the cloud of whimsy in unfamiliar confines. There are certainly slogged their way through the team’s lean
and nostalgia, and back into the reality of those who would rather forget Patrick Ewing years, which stretched right up until Curry
their competitive push and pull, the tensions wandering through his final two seasons, first showed up in town. The team built a
consistent core of players through the draft,
while also building a culture of basketball
that was both winning and thrilling. But
there have been changes. Most notably,
there was the transplanting of the team from
Oakland back to San Francisco, which Curry
admits has been a bit of a challenge. He loved
Oakland, he says. The team’s identity was
anchored there. “It feels a little bit like I got
traded, but within the same organization,”
he tells me. He and the team are trying to
build a new legacy, a sort of Warriors 2.0 in
San Francisco. Yet another opportunity for
a second life.
The team’s location in the Bay has pro-
vided some opportunities for Curry to build
a life away from basketball. He’s used his
company SC30 Inc. to invest in tech startups
like the travel platform Snaptravel. This entry
into tech, he says, was first orchestrated by
Andre Iguodala, during his first run with the
Warriors. “When he came from Denver in 2013,
he came with passion behind it and some con-
nections and he started to pique everybody’s
interest,” Curry says. “Our conversations in
the locker room started to change drastically
from rap albums and cars and all that type of
stuff to like: You see that company’s IPO? And
then obviously the awareness and exposure to
what’s in our backyard, Silicon Valley—he was
the first that really opened my eyes to what
was possible in that arena.”
Now Curry has his own media company,
Unanimous, which, among other things,
is responsible for producing the minia-
ture-golf show Holey Moley. “There’s so
much opportunity [in Hollywood] because
doors are open,” he says. “There’s so much
talent that can step into those rooms and
deserve to be there, stay there, and have suc-
cessful careers. And you can’t really quan-
tify it right now, but you can obviously have
those checkpoints like, ‘Are we making a true
impact?’ And, ‘How is that going to weave
into everything that I do?’”
←
jacket $415
Sandro
shirt $245
Emporio Armani
shorts $55
tights $55
sneakers $160
socks $18
Curry Brand
bracelet $12,000
David Yurman

→
jacket $1,340
Dries Van Noten
pants $2,490
Tom Ford
hat $80
Belstaff
 To make a more tangible and immediate
impact, in 2019 Curry launched a nonprofit
called Eat. Learn. Play. with his wife, Ayesha,
“Having always been perfect in terms of how I’ve tried
to start things. And there’s been a lot of differ-
ent transitions through a lot of phases of the
focusing on childhood nutrition, educa-
tion, and physical activity. In March 2021,
someone of early days of doing this and taking ownership
of it. But, I know it’s going to be worth it.”
the organization delivered meals to 24,000
students and their families to make up for
the meals those students would no longer
Stephenʼs THE GOLDEN STATE Warriors currently find
themselves in a unique transitional phase:
be getting at school due to pandemic limita-
tions. Elsewhere in Curry’s universe, SC30
stature take The team is getting older and younger at
the same time. With Curry and Thompson
Inc. has been responsible for launching
Howard University’s men’s and women’s golf
programs, and his Curry Brand has poured
you under and Iguodala and Green all now in their
30s, they’ve furnished the next generation
of their roster with players like Poole, James
funds into Harlem’s famous Rucker Park,
investing in programs to support young
his wings Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga, and Moses
Moody. They aren’t in rebuild mode, and their
basketball players in the area with clinics
and equipment.
There is a thread that runs through all of
pays huge best players still seem to have a lot left in the
tank, but they are mindful of continuity and
how to remain in contention when the sun
this: an obsession with uplifting the under-
dog, or the underrepresented, or—a word
dividends.” sets on the careers of their core players. With
this in mind, Kerr highlights Curry’s shift
Curry often uses—the “underrated.” in leadership. “Well, he’s never been a yell-
As we talk, it becomes clear that that idea —JORDAN P OOLE and-scream type of guy,” Kerr says. “He likes
is part of his DNA. His book club, which pulling guys aside and giving advice quietly.
carries the Underrated moniker, highlights But now, he’s much more likely to speak up in
books about protagonists overcoming per- have evolved through the decades, he brings front of the team than he was five years ago.
sonal struggles or ones by authors he feels up his father. “I had a front-row seat to watch He’s one of the oldest guys on the team, and
have been overlooked in their own right. Cole my dad go through it for 16 years,” Curry tells he recognizes the responsibility that comes
Brown’s Greyboy, about navigating the some- me. Dell Curry played the most prominent with that.”
times tricky boundaries between race and parts of his career in Charlotte, and in the Curry is something of a master of team
class, was one such book club pick; Brown is late ’90s he started a foundation that built dynamics, having had to grow into a leader
also working with Unanimous on bringing computer-learning centers in neglected with little in the way of a road map. When
other projects to the screen. Curry lights up neighborhoods. And just as Stephen was he came to Golden State, there were vet-
again when talking about his Underrated Tour, courtside at games, he was also required to erans, but there wasn’t a winning culture.
which travels the country offering a platform be hands-on in the off-court aspects of his Curry, Green, and Thompson had to figure
to three-star high-school basketball prospects. father’s career. “Me and my siblings used to out their own leadership styles, but also how
The players who might, for example, play in go volunteer and spend a lot of time in those to pass down what they learned when the
an auxiliary gym during the big AAU tourna- centers,” he says. “And I got to see what hap- time came. And that time is now. The team is
ments. The players who might have only one pens when a community is galvanized, gets pursuing another title while its best players
or two coaches locked in on them. (“When fundraising, gets places for kids to go spend simultaneously cling to their prime and con-
I was a sophomore, junior, in high school, I time and develop themselves and invest dition their young and talented teammates
wouldn’t even have been invited to my own themselves. I saw it on that level. And unless to keep up. It’s an alarming balance, one
camp,” he says, shaking his head.) you saw it up close, in person, you didn’t that might be easier if Golden State’s center-
When Curry’s aims and investments are all really hear about it.” pieces were in the twilight of their careers,
laid out, they can seem a bit like Curry is considering the shift playing through farewell tours.
a sneaker commercial, spoken in platform and ability to spread When Curry considers the construction
→
over some swelling instrumental. jacket $6,995
the good word. There was less of the team and his current responsibilities
Which might be more beautiful pants $3,245 than a decade between Dell’s within the Warriors ecosystem, he grins.
than inspirational on its face. But Brunello Cucinelli retirement (2002) and Stephen’s “Well, it’s also weird because when we won
his ambitions only come to life vest $255 entry into the league (2009), our first championship, in 2015, Jordan Poole
through the connective tissue that Mr. Saturday but in that small window, tech- was 15 years old,” he says. “Jonathan Kuminga
binds them together. None of it is sunglasses $335 nology changed. The potential and Moses Moody were like freshmen in
promising that the next Stephen Billy Reid x Krewe for exposure grew, and with it high school, and now they’re here. It’s weird
Curry will be unearthed through players’ profiles soared. In turn, to think they were watching us like we were
a camp, or through a kid having they gained more leverage, in almost basketball gods.” He laughs, and then
access to a meal or a court to play hair by yusef part leading to the modern era offers an accepting shrug. “And now they’re
wright. skin by
on. But these initiatives are all of renewed player empower- here helping us do it again.”
hee soo kwon using
asking the question of what might dior backstage face ment. “I’m still in the process of This specific nostalgia rings true for Jordan
happen if enough openings were & body foundation. building and trying and doing,” Poole, who summons a specific memory of
offered. What might happen if tailoring by yelena he says. “Not to sound too noble, Curry’s greatness: his infamous game-win-
enough young people ran through travkina. set design but I really respect and appre- ning pull-up three against Oklahoma City
one space to get to a larger, more by dylan lynch. ciate what’s happened in my in 2016. “I grew up in Milwaukee, so I was
produced by north
rewarding space. Yet another life in terms of what basketball mostly getting Eastern Conference games
six. photographed
manifestation of Curry’s game. at chase center, has provided me and my family. on television,” Poole says. “That was the rare
After I ask about how the home of the golden Opportunities I never thought night I got a Western Conference game, and it
responsibilities of star athletes state warriors. would be possible. And it hasn’t didn’t disappoint.” (continued on page 90)

4 6 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 BEGINS A T once. In
the very first inning of
his very first start last
season, Shohei Ohtani
does the thing that
now distinguishes him
among, frankly, all base-
ball players ever. In the
top half of the inning,
Ohtani-the-pitcher
eases his way into 2021
with a few 100-plus
mph fastballs and three quick outs. Then, in the bottom
half, Ohtani-the-hitter launches the first pitch he sees
451 feet into the right field bleachers, becoming the first
starting pitcher to homer in an American League game
since 1972. In just half an hour, then, the full breadth
of the spectacle of Major League Baseball’s first pitch-
ing-and-hitting two-way phenom since Babe Ruth.
The Los Angeles Angels superstar grows more dom-
inant on the mound all summer, supported in part by
the offense that he himself generates. As a result, he
becomes the first player in baseball history to appear in
the All-Star game as both a starting pitcher and a lead-
off hitter. In his home country of Japan, where he was
born, raised, and revered before he jumped to the MLB
four years ago, the public broadcasting network, NHK,
televises all of his games, employing in some broadcasts a
special Ohtani cam that holds on him at all times, allow-
ing viewers to track his every home run, head scratch,
and cup adjustment. A 7 p.m. East Coast road game starts
at 9 a.m. in Japan. A 7 p.m. L.A. home game starts at
noon. Daily Shohei from halfway around the world, so
ubiquitous it’s like the weather. What we are witnessing
during the Summer of Shohei is Ohtani becoming one
of the rarest things in sports: an athlete who is capable,
in any given crack of the bat or duck-diving splitter, of
producing something no one has seen with their own and fearsome power hitting. Shohei is, in this way, like
eyes before. It feels so natural to watch the biggest and LeBron bringing the ball up the court, shooting threes,
most talented kid on the field doing everything well that dunking over defenders, and swatting layups off the glass
it only underscores how rare it is for a pitcher-slugger to at the other end of the court. He is, in this way, like Lionel
ascend to the highest level of baseball. How improbable Messi weaving box to box with the ball at his feet, beating
it is to excel at one baseball thing—let alone the two most six or eight defenders, and practically dribbling across
highly valued skills in the game: surgical power pitching the opponent’s goal line. That is, defying the prescribed
limits of conventional positions, spacing, and skill so
overwhelmingly that it makes us question whether the
game’s ideas about who should play where and in what
capacity are wrong—have always been wrong.
When the Summer of Shohei ends in the fall, Ohtani
is presented with a unanimous MVP award (rare) and
the Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award (rarer
still). He is one of the few things in America, then, that
people can seem to agree on. But more than that, he is
the surest sign in a generation that the game may have a
player—and a whole new way of playing—to bring base-
ball back from the brink.

S H O H E I O H T A N I I S I N the cushioned cockpit of a

Duffy boat that’s cruising the man-made waterways
off Newport Beach, California. He is in all black—black
Asics sneakers; black Hugo Boss sweatpants and sweat-
shirt; black Oakley sunglasses; and a black Hugo Boss
hat, worn backward. Black that matches his matte black
all-electric Tesla Model X. Black that lengthens his broad
and plenty long six-foot-four frame, a frame so perfectly,
hybrid-ly engineered for pitching for power, hitting for
power, and running for speed that Hall of Famer Chipper
Jones called it “one of the best baseball bodies I’ve ever
seen…. He’s Adonis.”

5 0 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 He is 27 years old and has a young lineless face, made start to think about retirement.) The lens, then, had been
younger by an indiscriminate grin and a high-pitched selected. The aperture was tight. Life was contained to
laugh. On the field, he makes clear that barreling a base- the Sapporo dorms and the Sapporo Dome—and it was a
ball 500 feet or watching a batter whiff at one of his life of glorious baseball monasticism.
splitters is, in fact, more than any other emotion, fun. When we arrived at the harbor in Newport Beach,
He often can’t help but smile when he does something Shohei took photos with his phone of some luxury
incredible. And occasionally apologizes to opponents, yachts moored at the dock. There was wonder on his
with genuine sheepish deference, when he does some- face, some innocent chuckles, as though encountering
thing so extraordinary that it surprises even himself. conspicuous displays of recreational wealth were still
There are compilation videos of his countless baseball novel. The marina abutted Balboa Island, the Newport
feats, but also of Shohei just picking up trash off the field Beach–iest of Newport Beach, home to the banana
and in the dugout, evidence to the fans who make the stand that inspired Arrested Development and the
videos that he’s “just a great human.” waterfront lifestyle that inspired The O.C. There were
Shohei talks with English speakers primarily USC flags hanging from every other balcony. There were
through his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, who is also Land Rovers and Mercedes and custom golf carts. There
his 24/7 right hand, and, on the boat today, at his left were streets named for precious gems. The sun was hot,
hand. There’s a pattern to our exchanges. I say some- the hills were burning, precipitation felt like a distant,
thing, Shohei understands some, Ippei translates the dreamy memory. We were a long way from the enor-
rest. Shohei draws in a sharp inhalation as he consid- mous ice floe of Hokkaidō.
ers questions with the full battery of his brain—then As Shohei boarded the Duffy boat, which belongs to
says something that makes Ippei chuckle. It’s a warm Nez Balelo, Shohei’s agent and our captain for the day,
game of telephone. He hasn’t done something like this the top step dipped a nice plunking dip and the empty
before, and it maybe feels novel to put one’s lived life boat rolled. “Whoa!” Shohei exclaimed.
into (translated) words. I get the sense that he follows “Careful…” Balelo exhaled through his teeth before
most of what I’m saying all afternoon, while my entirely smiling. “Last thing we need is you slipping.”
untrained ears understand almost none of what he does, Shohei has played his first four seasons with the
save the occasional yakyū (baseball) and Ichiro-san. Angels on a series of contracts that have, much like the
Shohei was from his earliest age what’s known in rookie-year contracts of some top players in the NBA,
Japan as a yakyū shōnen—a kid who eats, sleeps, and felt like an inexplicable steal. The word rookie as applied
breathes baseball. He grew up in Ōshū, Iwate Prefecture, to Japanese stars who migrate to the majors has always
a region of rolling mountains and farmland. “Way out been a misnomer. Hideo Nomo was 26 when he arrived.
there,” Shohei says. “Countryside. Middle of nowhere.” Ichiro Suzuki was 27. Hideki Matsui was 28. Yu Darvish
The equivalent in Japan of growing up in the cornfields was 25. They were multiyear All-Stars in Japan. MVPs in
of the American Midwest. His dad played ball in the all cases. Shohei made the move at 23. But had he waited
Japanese Industrial League—for the automotive plant until he was 25, he would’ve been regarded as a free
where he and Shohei’s mother worked—and coached agent (i.e., free to be paid anything; i.e., free to be paid
Shohei’s little league team. At the youth level, games in hundreds of millions of dollars). By jumping to the States
Japan begin with players removing their caps and bow- when he did, though, there were complex restrictions in
ing to their coach, their hosts, the fans, and then the field. place by the MLB that basically made him available for ←←
(A tradition that adds context to those videos of Shohei pennies on the dollar, which meant every team in the OPENING PAGES
clearing his cathedral of litter.) Shohei attended one of majors could play along in the sweepstakes and make AND OPPOSITE
PAGE
the top baseball high schools in the country and experi- their pitch. Shohei ultimately chose the Angels for what
vest $198
enced his first real national attention as an 18-year-old he calls “a little connection… It was just a feeling more shirt $99
when he was clocked on TV throwing a 100 mph fastball than anything else—the vibe, the connection.” Polo Ralph Lauren
to another teenager who looks in the instant like he’s just Shohei didn’t really feel the palpable transition from mock turtleneck $35
seen the future: his, not playing baseball; this kid on the one life to another on the plane ride to the U.S., he says, Lands’ End
mound, making it somewhere very far. but rather when he first met his teammates at spring pants from
After flirting with jumping to America while still in training in Arizona: “I felt like my lifelong dream was ABC Signature
his teens, Shohei signed with the Japanese pro league’s really starting up.” The scene in Arizona was frenzied. Rare Costume
Hokkaidō Nippon-Ham Fighters when they agreed to
let him try playing both ways (something no team in
Japan or the U.S. had been scouting him for at the time).
During his five years with the Fighters, Shohei became
the Nippon Professional Baseball league’s star. An MVP.
A Japan Series champion. A future world beater. The
Fighters are based in Sapporo, the capital of Japan’s
northernmost main island of Hokkaidō, where it is
snowy, windswept, “harsh,” Shohei says—in all times
but the heart of baseball season a landscape shaped by
arctic blasts across the Sea of Japan from Siberia. While
living in the team dorms, he sent his salary home to his
mother, who in turn put about a thousand dollars in his
personal bank account each month that Shohei rarely
touched. Despite the mounting fame in Japan, his was a
life organized around the single-minded pursuit of a set
of highly specific baseball goals. In high school, his coach
asked him to create a document with objectives for each
year. (E.g.: Age 26: Win the World Series and get married.
/ Age 37: First son starts baseball. / Age 38: Stats drop;
are the rookie prospects who are expected to
immediately deliver on such sizzling hype.
Shohei struggled at first, spiking balls from
the mound, whiffing at Major League gas.
The explanations were reasonable: He’d
often been slow to start a season; the aver-
age pitcher in the MLB throws harder than
the average pitcher in the NPB; the ball is
literally different (“it just felt really slippery
in my hand”); and he was adjusting to a
move to a whole new country, new food, new
electrical outlets. “I’ve never been homesick,”
he says. Not when he left his parents’ house
in high school, not when he moved into the
dorms in Hokkaidō, not in Phoenix that first
spring training, and not now.
But he was struggling—and he
felt a little lost.
Which is when Ichiro Suzuki—
the 10-time All-Star and one-
time MVP, who at 44 was in
Arizona for his second-to-last
season with the Mariners—
invited Shohei to dinner.
“Growing up,” Shohei says,
“Ichiro was for me the way that
I think some kids, some people,
look at me today. Like I’m a dif-
ferent species. Larger than life.
He was a superstar in Japan.
He had this charisma about
him. But once I actually met
him, and went to dinner with
him, he was much closer to an
average guy—which was kind
of surprising.”
At dinner that night, they talked
about the transition to the league, the
initial struggles of getting used to life
in America: “But he basically told me:
‘Remember to be yourself. You made it
this far being yourself, so don’t change
that, stay within yourself.’ And I kind of
had to think about that. I’m the type of
person who’s always modifying a little
bit, a little tweak in form here and there,
always changing. Which kind of contra-
dicts with what Ichiro was saying. But know if I would’ve made it at all,” he says.
as I’ve really thought about it over the “I would’ve had to go through the minor
last few years, I’ve realized that that’s league system, and I can’t really say one hun-
me, that’s who I am—actually changing dred percent that I would’ve been called up to
stuff around.” Shohei recognized that the big leagues in the end.” Instead: patience
“being himself ” meant always evolving. and evolution. For both Shohei as a player
And it meant adhering to the instincts and baseball as an institution. Major League
that had gotten him this far—that had made him the ↑ teams may not have been ready in 2013 to try something
best player in Japan and had put him on the precipice of THIS PAGE, TOP so radical, to run that supreme risk of wear and tear
becoming the best in the world. “And so ever since that all jerseys with a potential star or to fly in the face of the jack-of-
(throughout), his own
dinner with Ichiro, it kind of gave me the confidence to all-trades-master-of-none sensibility that had ruled the
just be myself, to keep doing the right things, and to stay turtleneck $178 game for so long. But by 2018, Shohei had proved the
Boss
confident, to stay the course.” concept. And made his demands clear. Both ways or no
At one point on the boat, I ask Shohei how he’d be dif- THIS PAGE, ways. The majors were finally ready to see it his way.
ferent if he’d jumped to the U.S. as an 18-year-old, right BOT TOM
out of high school, instead of putting in those five years jacket (price IT WAS PROBABLY always going to be a Japanese ball-
with the Fighters and developing further in Japan first. upon request) player who reminded us what baseball at its best could
ERL
Back then, he says, everyone was just scouting him as a be. With its feverish game-day atmosphere and galaxy
pitcher. No way would he have been playing two-way— all hats of superstars, baseball in Japan retains the potency
(throughout),
pitching roughly once a week, and DHing most of the his own
of baseball in America from 25, 50, 75 years ago, when
rest of the time, as he does now—or even been given the baseball was our game, and players were not just our
chance in the U.S. to try. “And to be honest, I don’t even most famous athletes but our most famous anybodys.

5 2 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 It has been some time since a new baseball player an international sport itself in terms of participation. ↑
has become a household name. But it was palpable all But when you talk about an audience gravitating to the sweater $1,290
shirt $690
last year that we were witnessing someone who might tube, or to the ballpark, to actually watch you, I don’t
Prada
reframe the possibilities, for generations to come, for think it helps that the number one face is a dude that
pants from
what any one individual player could do in the game. needs an interpreter so that you can understand what
ABC Signature
The thrust was awe. But opportunism, as well. Here was the hell he’s saying in this country.” Costume
the savior baseball had been waiting for. To reenergize a Smith ultimately apologized for his comments but was
game that had suffered a nation’s shift in interests toward hammered for both his contention that the star of an
other sports, toward other stars, toward other obsessions American sports league needs to speak English—and that
measured in seconds of entertainment, rather than extra anyone would necessarily care one way or the other. When
innings and endless summers. This was an entirely rea- I ask Shohei what he made of Smith’s comments, he (iron-
sonable evolution. Baseball would be relegated to the ically) understands my question in English and chuckles.
back burner for good. But what if, 2021 seemed to tease, “I mean, if I could speak English, I would speak
that inevitable fate were in fact reversible? English,” he says in Japanese. “Of course I would want
“This brother is special, make no mistake about it,” to. Obviously it wouldn’t hurt to be able to speak English.
Stephen A. Smith said in July, on ESPN’s First Take. There would only be positive things to come from that.
“But the fact that you’ve got a foreign player that doesn’t But I came here to play baseball, at the end of the day,
speak English, that needs an interpreter—believe it or and I’ve felt like my play on the field could be my way of
not, I think contributes to harming the game to some communicating with the people, with the fans. That’s all
degree, when that’s your box office appeal. It needs I really took from that in the end.
to be somebody like Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, those “It’s mandatory in school, for, like, six years in Japan,”
guys.” He continued, “I understand that baseball is he adds. “Middle school, high school, which everyone

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 5 3
takes. That was the only exposure to English I had for baseball to thrive again. I ask him what he’d change
before I came over. My high school English teacher about the game as it currently works. He considers, then
was actually my baseball coach…,” he says, laughing, as says, “Honestly, I’m satisfied with everything. No need to
something appears to occur to him in real time. “Now make any drastic changes.”
that I think about it, he probably can’t speak the lan- But there is that thing, I tell him, that so many of us
guage that well. But they teach it to us to, like, pass in the U.S. feel in our bones, where we can sense that
tests. They don’t really teach it to be…” To be broadcast baseball has faded in the collective cultural imagina-
on SportsCenter. To be making the charismatic case for tion. Particularly for a writer like this one whose love
rejuvenating a nation’s latent baseball fandom. “Not of baseball and love of movies awakened at the precise
that I want to be dissing the whole English educational same moment, when baseball seemed to be the only topic
system of Japan…” that Hollywood was interested in. I’m talking about the
Part of what Smith was presupposing, I suggest to golden span that produced Bull Durham (1988), Major
Shohei, is that he has become the quote-unquote face League (1989), Field of Dreams (1989), Mr. Baseball
of baseball. And that baseball needs him to act a certain (1992), A League of Their Own (1992), The Sandlot (1993),
way to carry the game on his shoulders. Do you feel any THIS PAGE AND Rookie of the Year (1993), Angels in the Outfield (1994),
new pressure to represent more than yourself or your OPPOSITE PAGE, and Little Big League (1994). For the record, Shohei
team, and instead the whole game? TOP RIGHT has seen none of these, not even Mr. Baseball, about an
tank top $42
“More than pressure,” he says, “I’m actually happy American in the NPB, but likes Rudy (1993). How could
for pack of three
to hear that. It’s what I came here for, to be the best Calvin Klein any reasonable American eight-year-old conclude, just
player I can. And hearing ‘the face of baseball,’ that’s very Underwear then, that baseball was not the most important text of an
welcoming to me, and it gives me more motivation to— shorts $165 American life? And yet. After surging through the sum-
because I’ve only had, this was my first really good year. Aimé Leon Dore mer of Sosa and McGwire, through the steroids scandal,
And it’s only one year. So it gives me more motivation to pants $3,295 and then a two-decade decline into a sports landscape
keep it up, and have more great years.” Brunello Cucinelli populated by the riches of an ascendant NBA, a resusci-
The debate over who, exactly, should “save baseball” is sneakers $85 tated NFL, and overseas TV deals for the Premier League
an extension of the desperate sense, borne out by years of Converse and Formula 1, it’s easy to look back and see how those
decline in popularity, that baseball needs a savior in the socks from halcyon days were always going to end, and how base-
first place. That something is broken, or at the very least ABC Signature ball, that unmistakable wallpaper of the American cen-
flat, and that something fundamental must pivot in order Costume tury, might fade for good from too much time in the sun.

5 4 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 And yet. And yet. Shohei Ohtani has something to say ↑
about my terminal prognostication. t-shirt
“Baseball was born here, and I personally want base- (price upon request)
ERL
ball to be the most popular sport in the United States. So
if I can contribute in any way to help that, I’m more than
open to it,” he says. “But if you look at the whole baseball press outlets. Not Major
population in the world, it’s a lot less than, like, soccer League Baseball. Not the
and basketball, because only select countries are really Angels. Just Shohei Ohtani.
big on baseball. But in those countries where it’s huge, The scrutiny that Japanese
it’s unbelievably huge.” athletes experience when they
What he’s saying is that it’s a very America-centric idea reach the highest echelons of
that baseball is dying. What he’s saying is that if you ever sports is not exactly new, or all
get the sense again that baseball is dying, you might take that difficult to understand.
a trip to Japan. It’s something that Naomi
Osaka explained to me when
THIS WINTER, SHOHEI returned to Japan, as he does I asked her about Shohei.
each off-season, to spend time at his place in Tokyo, his “In the U.S., there are more
old house in Ōshū, and at the hot springs in Iwate where star athletes across various
he goes with his family over New Year’s to get away from sports, so the load is a bit more spread out. In Japan,
“the flashbulb lights” in his home country. “He’s already there are fewer Japanese global stars, so the attention
tall for a Japanese guy, so he stands out anyway, ” says is a bit more intense,” she said. “Earlier in my career,
Ippei, who’s had a front-row seat to the Shohei circus I was much more well known in Japan, where there was a
for years, ever since he was the interpreter for foreign spotlight on me—and that actually helped when I became
players on the Fighters. “He hasn’t really been able to more successful globally because I was already used to
go out freely since his rookie year with the Fighters.” it to an extent. I think Shohei can relate to that.” U.S.-
Crushes of fans. Perpetual media presence. Stalkers in based Japanese tennis star Kei Nishikori told me sepa-
the dorms in Hokkaidō, Ippei recalls. The mania now rately: “For me, it’s a lot easier to live and train in a small
has compounded so that Shohei hardly ever appears in town in Florida, where it’s very easy to go shopping, go
public in Japan, and when he does, he’s forced to move to restaurants, or go to a movie without anyone knowing.
cautiously between house and car and the occasional In Japan, it’s a little bit crazy. It’s just much harder to go
restaurant, where he or Ippei must call ahead to arrange outside on the street for daily life. For my career, I always
to be sneaked in through the side door. felt it was good to live in Florida. Besides the great train-
“At this point, I think he’s in his own category,” Ippei ing, it’s good to be in a calm environment.”
says when I ask him about Shohei’s fame in Japan relative Notably, Osaka and Nishikori—along with reigning
to other athletes, movie stars, musicians, and politicians. Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama, Shohei, and the
“After the season he had, I really feel like there’s probably contingency of Japanese stars in other sports—represent
not one single person that can match his popularity right a new core of Japanese athletic supremacy. I ask Shohei
now. I heard a lot of people say that Shohei himself was if he feels there’s a difference, and, if so, what he ascribes
a bigger attraction than the Olympics in Japan. The best this generation’s success to.
part of the pandemic. I hear a lot of people wake up to “I think you’re right that there’s something going on.
watching Shohei. He’ll hit a home run and it’ll just lighten And I think the reason it feels like that is it’s easier to
up the whole country. He just made their day, made it get out there in the world right now than it was back
easier for them to go to work in the morning.” in the day. Like in baseball, someone like Nomo-san or
Just because he’s playing in the U.S. now doesn’t mean Ichiro-san were the pioneers, they opened the door for
the scrutiny dims. Rather, it intensifies. There are as many someone like me. And I’m sure it’s like that in other
as 20 journalists who cover Shohei full-time for Japanese sports too. I just feel taking that first step is the hardest

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 5 5
 dreams of landing Shohei may be alive and well one day
in the near future if the Angels allow him to become a
free agent—this here is tough to beat for now.
I ask Shohei, known for that visualization as a teen-
ager of his life decades into the future, if he has a sense
of where he’d like to end up, not just for the baseball
years, but long after. “If I had to choose right now where
to live, I might pick the States. Just cause it’s a lot more
relaxing, laid-back, chill. I can do my own thing and not
get bugged. The lifestyle is just…Tokyo, especially, is just
a little more hectic and busy, stuff constantly going on.
Back here, it’s just nice weather, chill, laid-back.”

AFTER THE 2018 season, when he was the AL Rookie

of the Year and fans got an appetizer course of the first
potential two-way career in a century, Shohei spent much
of his second and third years in the U.S. on the back
foot—recovering from Tommy John and knee surgeries,
heeding COVID protocols, pitching just twice in two sea-
sons, and otherwise attempting to find his way out of the
first valley of his career. “More than frustration it was
disappointment,” he says, “because I knew there were
certain expectations that were surrounding me, and I
wasn’t able to meet those. For myself, for the team. I just
didn’t really know how good I really was. Or if it was just
because of the injury. There wasn’t much clarity on why
I was struggling.”
Which is what made the fireworks of 2021 all the more
cathartic. Near the top of the league in home runs, slug-
ging, and OPS; racking up Wins Above Replacement at
the plate and on the mound. A full season of the great
two-way experiment on full display with a healthy
Shohei. “It was,” he says, “just fun again.”
For all the unprecedented two-way scenarios and sta-
tistics that Shohei set new watermarks for last year, there
is one thing that will never happen, but that I was curi-
ous to hear if Shohei had ever considered.
You’re facing yourself for 10 at bats: What happens?
He understands me without Ippei’s translation and
laughs his high-pitched laugh. Then he thinks very hard
before responding. He is throwing pitches, swinging at
pitches, seeing pitches from both sides.
“Five strikeouts.”
He is weighing the statistics, of which he is familiar.
He loves comparing numbers across the seasons, the
decades, the generations.
step—and it’s a lot easier to get out there and challenge ↑ “One walk.”
the world now.” jacket $3,450 A virtue of baseball’s enduring, if interminable, 162-
At one point, while we’re cruising around and the sun Louis Vuitton game regular season is the harmony between past and
Men's
is glinting off the surface of the harbor like the crackling present that allows us to quantitatively measure the
static in the air, Shohei looks out over this rarefied edge t-shirt from greatness unfolding before our eyes.
ABC Signature
of his new home and says, in English, “Beautiful….” to “One homer.”
Costume
no one in particular. It is impossible, on an afternoon He wasn’t obsessed with baseball history growing up,
turtleneck $138
like this, not to understand how a player like Shohei—or but he loves poring through the detailed stat lines he
Hugo
the last decade’s standout talent, Mike Trout—forgoes a has access to now of the players everyone knows, but
pants, his own
greater chance of winning to play for the Angels. Yes, six especially of the players he didn’t realize were quite as
straight seasons below .500. Yes, a fan base that seems dominant as they’d been in their time. “You hear these
at times to comprise only residents of Balboa Island and big names from the past,” he told me at one point, “and
Mike Trout’s parents. It’s an odd setting for the game’s you know they were good players, but you can see now
superstars. But this here is a theoretical reason why. The just how good they really were.”
Duffy boat and the banana stand. The sparkling water of “One double.”
the sundown sea. The takeout from True Food Kitchen Like relief pitcher Koji Uehara, the Japanese transplant
(a Shohei favorite). The things that make a simple life a 19 years Shohei’s senior, who was by several metrics one
little bit better and easier—besides MVP awards and hun- of the most sneaky shut-down relievers of the last decade.
dreds of millions of dollars. Though, yes, he may enjoy “Last two: a fly-out and a groundout.”
playing in Fenway (“the atmosphere of the stadium, the Very specific, I say.
building itself”), visiting the ballparks on the East Coast He laughs. “I try to get as real as I can.”
(“there’s a lot of history there”), and sampling the deli- There are the extraordinary feats, the defiance
cacies of Chicago (“the deep dish”)—and though, yes, all of limits, the eruption of firsts and not-since’s and

5 6 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 never-have-we-seen’s. There is the two-way potency, When I’d asked Shohei how he might be different if
the dual mastery of the once sacred specializations, the he’d come to the U.S. five years earlier than he did, he
fresh blueprint for how future stars might bring their focused on the baseball outcome: He might not even
singular assemblage of talents to bear on the game. have made it in the majors. But I also meant emotion-
Those are the ways Shohei Ohtani might break base- ally. Maturity-wise. How different would he be?
ball by making it new. Or rather by making it new by “Honestly, even now, I feel like I haven’t really
making it old again. changed much since I was 18. There wasn’t a huge
By reintroducing the possibility of a bona fide two- difference in those five years”—living in the dorms in
way superstar. By reminding us what it was like when Japan, just playing ball.
ballplayers were kings. When their every movement That is: when that pure engagement with the
electrified a live crowd, stopped people in the street game could be preserved by living simply and single-
to huddle around a television or a radio, or prompted mindedly. Then, as now. An apartment. A ballpark.
opposing fans to boo an intentional walk, as they did all A Tesla. Some takeout.
↓ last summer when they were deprived of the potential As we glide up to the dock, he thanks Balelo for the
LEF T for fireworks. These are, in other words, the ways in boat tour, and says “Nice ride!” in English. When I sug-
turtleneck $178 which Shohei Ohtani is making baseball 1951 again—for gest that he could get one for himself, he looks incred-
Boss fans old enough to have heard with their own ears the ulous. “Too much expensive,” he says.
RIGHT
Shot Heard Round the World (or at least read about Before we go, I ask him to describe for me, in his own
sweater $1,290 it in DeLillo). Or 1978 again. Or, indeed, 1993, for this words, what a yakyū shōnen is.
shirt $690 writer, and those my age, who no doubt believed that “Yakyū shōnen is a kid who loves baseball,” he says.
Prada Ken Griffey Jr. was more powerful than the president. “Who’s just purely enjoying baseball. When I was a
More than new or old, though, he is really just help- yakyū shōnen, I probably had the most fun playing up
grooming by hee ing this country get a taste of what baseball feels like to this day, because I was just starting to learn a new
soo kwon using dior every day in Japan, for fans for whom baseball never sport, and it was just fun—generally fun. And all the
backstage face & lost its juice. He is imbuing baseball with an opportu- practices were usually on the weekend, so I was wait-
body foundation. nity to go both forward and backward at the same time, ing all week for the weekend to hurry up and come so
tailoring by yelena in ways that remind us—and showcase—all there is to I could practice and play some ball.”
travkina. produced
love and light up for. Shohei inspires this sentiment by I ask if yakyū shōnen could be used to describe some-
by erl studios.
photographed at being the best there is. But he inspires it, too, by simply one at the professional level too. Someone who, say,
los angeles angels loving baseball like I didn’t know anyone still did. Or at plays with unadulterated joy. Who smiles—and even
angel stadium. least like how I figured only a child could. occasionally apologizes to his opponent—when he does
something incredible. Who treats every game like it’s the
weekend after a long week of school.
“I mean, it literally means ‘baseball boy,’ ” he says,
smiling. “But, sure, I guess you could refer to a profes-
sional that way too.”

daniel riley is a gq correspondent.

 Mohamed Salah
is the
best soccer player
in the world
right now.
The world just
hasn’t quite
admitted
it yet. BY
OLIVER
FRANKLIN-WALLIS

PHOTOGRAPHS
BY
FANNY
LATOUR-LAMBERT

STYLED
BY
JON TIETZ
 that at Egypt’s last presidential elections, in 2018, there
were widespread reports of voters spoiling their ballots
and writing in Salah’s name, despite the seemingly per-
tinent fact that he wasn’t running.
Finally, some double ballroom doors swing open and
here comes Salah, in a black Haculla hoodie and jeans
and MGSM sneakers, being mobbed by what must be
two dozen of the film crew all attempting to get a selfie
with their idol. Salah goes along with it, smiling even
though it’s clearly a bit much, until eventually his agent
intervenes and we take refuge in another equally splen-
did room that appears to be set up for a wedding. Salah
Lord Mayor of Liverpool is wearing a nervous smile sits down, hands in pockets, unfazed by it all. He is used
and a gold ceremonial chain the size of a saucer, the to the adoration. “It’s something I wanted,” he says. “But
kind worn to greet royalty or a foreign dignitary— not that much!”
which feels appropriate, because it’s not every day you Besides, this is nothing. If he were to step out onto
get a visit from the Egyptian king. It’s a cloudless fall the street right now in Liverpool—a city that reveres its
day in the city, and star Liverpool forward Mohamed soccer players almost as much as it does the Beatles—
Salah has come to the town hall to film an interview instant mob. In New York, he can’t even stay at a hotel
with an Egyptian TV channel. The producers wanted without some Egyptian staff member tracking down
somewhere aspirational, opulent, to film their national his room number and calling up to pay tribute while
icon, and honestly they couldn’t have picked better. he’s trying to sleep. (True.) And in Egypt itself ? Well,
The building is ostentatiously beautiful, late Georgian, I am unable to adequately convey the extent to which
all Corinthian columns and gold-filigree cornicing and Salah is beloved in his own country, where the bazaars
crystal ballroom chandeliers that the Lord Mayor, a tiny sell his face on every marketable household item, and
woman named Mary, informs me each weighs a ton. streets and schools are frequently renamed in his honor.
The staff buzzes around nervously, chattering in low “Salah is the dream,” Amr Adib, the Egyptian TV anchor
voices while the cameras roll in the next room. Salah! who has come to interview him, tells me. “He is a role
Even Mary, an Everton fan—and thus a supporter of model. It is a success story: how you can begin from
Liverpool’s most hated rivals—is excited. “I’m not a bit- zero and become number one in the world.” For a coun-
ter Blue,” she whispers, because all rivalries aside, who try that has struggled to get back on its feet since the
doesn’t love Mohamed Salah? Arab Spring uprising over a decade ago, Salah is some-
In Egypt, where his life story is taught in schools, his thing more than an athlete: He has become a paragon
nickname is the Happiness Maker. This is as much for of how to live.
his feats on the field—where he has in five seasons led a The responsibility can be overwhelming. Not long ago,
resurgent Liverpool to Premier League and Champions Salah took his family—his wife, Magy Sadeq, and their
←←
League titles, breaking umpteen records on the way— two kids, Makka, 7, and Kayan, 1—back home to Nagrig
PREVIOUS PAGE
as his feats off it. He’s got that million-lumen smile; jersey from
for Eid. “I went out with my family just to walk and go
the Afro-beard combo; the whole wholesome, hard- Classic Football to pray, and suddenly I see three or four hundred people
working, family-man image. In Nagrig, the village in Shirts outside,” he says. The throng was so intense that they
the Nile Delta north of Cairo where Salah grew up, his shorts $480 couldn’t leave the house. Salah tweeted about it at the
generosity is legendary: He has paid to build a school, Hermès time; one of the few occasions that he has shown anger
a water-treatment plant, and an ambulance station sneakers $80 in public. “I was so mad. My mom was crying, my sister
there, and every month his foundation provides food Adidas was crying, my wife was crying, because they wanted me
and money to the destitute. socks $15 for to go on that day,” he says. “My father was disappointed.
Tales of Salah’s beneficence occur so regularly that sto- pack of three I needed to be with them.”
ries about it occasionally now crop up that aren’t even Adidas Originals Still, he knows that it comes from a place of love.
true, but because Salah almost never gives interviews, → “I really do understand. People get excited to see you. It is
nobody is around to dispel them. Others are true but blazer, vintage what it is, you have to deal with it.” He remembers what
would seem fantastical if there wasn’t video and/or pho- it was like, to be growing up without much. When I ask
t-shirt $30
tographic evidence to confirm them, such as the time shorts $35 Salah about the incident with the thief, he at first tries
a bunch of assholes were picking on a homeless man Adidas to dodge the question, apparently not wanting to seem
at a Liverpool gas station, only for Salah to show up in vintage bandana crass by discussing his own charity. So I press him: Why
his Bentley and defuse the situation, before giving the from did he let him go? “I’m not supporting that [stealing],”
homeless guy money for somewhere to stay. (True.) Or Raggedy Threads he says. “But I’m sure he had a bigger reason to steal.
the time that a thief stole 30,000 Egyptian pounds— I just feel he did it for a reason. When my father asked,
about $1,900—from Salah’s father’s car, and the police the police said he was a really poor guy and had nothing
caught the culprit, only for Salah to persuade his father in his life. So I told him: Just help him and leave him
not to press charges, and then actually give the thief alone.” Mohamed Salah knows firsthand how lives can
money to help turn his life around. (Also true.) According change, and he is nothing if not a true believer in the
to Stanford University researchers, Salah’s arrival at power of second chances.
Liverpool in 2017 correlated with an 18.9 percent fall in
hate crimes in the city; in Egypt, his involvement in a O N T H E F I E L D he is a winger who plays as a striker, a
government antidrug campaign led to a fourfold increase goal scorer of sublime quality and uncommon consis-
in help-line calls. At this point it may not surprise you tency. Salah marked his arrival at Liverpool in 2017 by

6 0 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 breaking the record for goals scored in a 38-game sea- Or his goal in the 2-0 win over Porto in November:
son; the following season, he led the team to its sixth First he plays a back-heel pass to Liverpool captain
Champions League title; the year after, the club won the Jordan Henderson on the edge of the box, then runs on
Premier League title for the first time in 30 years. A freak to Henderson’s return pass. The ball is rolling perpen-
team-wide injury crisis meant last season was a wash dicular to the goal, toward a Porto defender, when Salah
→
(they still somehow came in third). But this season Salah micro-momentarily shapes to shoot, and the defender
sweater-vest $675
has ascended to another plane. At the time of writing, Connor McKnight
dives to the floor to block it—but Salah hasn’t even
he has scored 19 goals and assisted nine more in just 20 touched the ball. Only then does he control it so imper-
pants $1,660
games, putting him on track to break his own record. Louis Vuitton Men’s
ceptibly that the ball doesn’t even change speed, and rifle
To watch Salah play right now is to experience the rare, it in at the near post with a deft sweep of his instep.
sneakers $80
thrilling sensation of an athlete’s true peak revealing Adidas
This is Salah’s greatest weapon: this sense that he’s
itself, like an alpine summit in clearing fog. As Jürgen streaming reality on a faster connection than we are. He
socks $18 for
Klopp, Liverpool’s manager, told me via email: “At this pack of three
doesn’t showboat, instead sprinting at defenders full pelt,
moment, I think Mo can make a very valid claim for Adidas Originals waiting for the smallest misstep or shift of momentum
being the best footballer on the planet.” hat $50
that he can use to go past. “That’s my game since I was
Throughout his career, Salah has been, if anything, Stüssy young,” Salah says. We’re in his box after the Porto game,
underrated: discarded by Chelsea, twice ignored for watch $23,900
Salah cooling down in Nike sweats and Yeezys and snack-
the Team of the Year, including in 2018–19, when he Audemars Piguet ing on blueberries and a Vita Coco. “I get the ball, I am
was the league’s joint top scorer. There is a long-held coming to you. I am coming to you!”
perception—unfounded—that he is selfish, that he The night of the Porto game, the Anfield crowd
shoots too much, or that he chases individual glory over started singing his name in the seventh minute, and
team success. This is easily disproved by the numbers: it was still emanating from nearby pubs long after the
No forward in the league has more assists than Salah final whistle. Liverpool is, in many ways, the perfect
since he arrived at Liverpool, not his regular Golden fit for Salah. His face adorns the outside of the sta-
Boot rivals Sadio Mané or Raheem Sterling or Harry dium and a flag in the fabled Kop section. Under Klopp
Kane. “He’s the best sort of greedy,” Klopp says. “He the team has become notorious for overwhelming its
wants more for the team and more for himself, but the opponents before they can even escape their own half,
first part of that is what drives him. He wants us, the and the cruel effectiveness of this approach, known as
team, to win first and foremost.” He has scored more gegenpressing, is really only possible to appreciate in
Premier League goals than any African player in history, person. The entire team hunts in packs, Salah yelling
reached 100 goals faster than any other Liverpool player. to his teammates to press high, forcing mistakes that
Despite this, he has never broken into the top three for might be quickly turned into scoring opportunities.
the Ballon d’Or, soccer’s most esteemed individual prize. These chances are produced not by delicate play but
Partly this is just the misfortune of having existed at the by sheer force of will—and Salah is better at converting
same time as two of the greatest to play the game. But them than perhaps any player alive.
there’s also the lingering sense that his game doesn’t get
the recognition it deserves. THE BEST-KNOWN story about Salah is that as a kid he
Salah says it doesn’t bother him. “I’m sure a lot of peo- had to travel by bus for nine hours round trip every day
ple appreciate what I’m doing. I don’t really care about to get to training. This is also true. He learned to play
it. Weak mentalities like to feel that. I don’t.” the Egyptian way, on the streets, scrapping it out in the
Anyway, this will surely be the year his doubters are local youth leagues around Nagrig until he was scouted
converted. Crucially—highlights being to professional at 13 by Al Mokawloon, a team in Egypt’s top division.
athletes as hymns to missionaries—he scores beautiful Al Mokawloon, which Salah refers to by its English
goals. Take the one he scored against Manchester City name, Arab Contractors, is based in Nasr City, a suburb
in October. Salah receives the ball outside the penalty of Cairo 82 miles south of Salah’s hometown. So every
area in a crowd of three opposition players, shrugs off morning Salah would go to school at 7 a.m., then leave
one, rolls the ball past the other two with the sole of his after two hours (the club gave him a permission slip)
boot, then surges into the box. You think he’ll do what and walk a mile past jasmine fields to a bus stop. There
he always does, which is shoot with his left—but no, he he boarded a microbus—a camper van crammed with
beats the City center back with a jagged cutback and three or even four rows of seats—to nearby Basyoun.
hits it with his right across the goal face at an angle From Basyoun he’d catch another to Tanta; from Tanta
so acute that it hits the far post before nestling into to Cairo’s bustling Ramses Square; and finally a fourth
the net. to the training ground in Nasr City. “Half an hour, one
hour, then two hours, then maybe half an hour or 45
minutes for the last one,” Salah says, ticking off the
transfers from memory.
Training itself lasted only a couple of hours, but Salah
“THAT’S MY GAME SINCE would try to turn up early and stay late, starting the long
journey home around 6 p.m. At the time, Al Mokawloon

I WAS YOUNG. I GET THE BALL, was paying him a monthly salary of 125 EGP—roughly
$20—which didn’t even cover bus fare for a week, so his

I AM COMING TO YOU. father, who owned a jasmine trading business, covered

the rest.

I AM COMING TO YOU!” So many journalists have tried to re-create Salah’s

bus journey that their dispatches could fill an essay

6 2 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 club spoke Arabic,” Salah says. At first he couldn’t watch
TV, read the newspapers, or even order takeout. “It was
really hard. But I needed to adapt to it, or go back. You
don’t have a third choice.” On the field, his talent did not
require translation. In two seasons, he helped Basel to
back-to-back league titles and earned the league’s best-
player award.
What happened next is one of fate’s curious what-if
moments. In the winter of 2014, Salah had an offer to
join Liverpool but instead accepted a move to Chelsea. It
made sense at the time: Chelsea was the more dominant
team. But the club was also stacked with star forwards
and managed by José Mourinho, a coach notorious for
rarely rotating his starting lineup. “When I look back, [I
had] bad advice with the situation,” Salah says.
London was an even bigger change than Switzerland.
Soon after arriving, Magy gave birth to their first child,
Makka. Back home, Salah’s fame exploded. Then and
now, an Egyptian player signing for a top Premier
League team is virtually unheard of. But he struggled
to get minutes at Chelsea, often left out of the squad
entirely. Critics started saying that he’d moved too soon,
that he wasn’t suited for the more physical side of the
Premier League. Salah stopped reading the news. “It
was so tough for me, mentally. I couldn’t handle the
pressure I had from the media, coming from outside,”
Salah says. “I was not playing that much. I felt, ‘No, I
need to go.’ ”
The following year, Chelsea sent Salah out on loan to
Fiorentina. He enjoyed Italy, played well, and in 2015
moved to Roma. At this point, plenty of equally talented
players might have settled: Okay, you had your shot at
the top, but this is your level. But Salah’s rejection at
Chelsea cracked something open within him, like a drill
hitting groundwater. His motivation redoubled. “You
have two choices: to tell the people that they are right to
put you on a bench, or to prove them wrong,” Salah says.
“I needed to prove them wrong.”
While he was still on the bench at Chelsea, Salah
had started lifting weights more, building his upper-
body strength. “I used to go every day because I knew
I would not play,” he says. (If you’ve seen Salah’s
shirtless celebrations, or his Instagram, you know it
collection. None capture what it must have been like: the ↑ worked. The guy’s abs look like freshly baked dinner
grueling monotony, the social isolation, all mixed up with vintage shirt from rolls.) He started getting deep into self-help books like
a 14-year-old’s daydreams of going pro. “I know when Melet Mercantile Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,
we say nine hours this looks crazy, but I did it because shorts $480 and bingeing YouTube videos by success coaches like
I loved it,” Salah says. “I wanted to be where I am now, so Hermès Tony Robbins and Zig Ziglar. “The one I think changed
I didn’t feel that it was that hard.” pants, vintage [me] a lot is Napoleon Hill,” Salah says. “He is one of
Eventually, Salah impressed the coaches at Al stylist’s own the main guys who really talked about belief in your-
Mokawloon enough that they gave him a room at the sneakers self. For me, every book after that takes from what he
training ground, and by 17 he had broken into the first Adidas said.” (Ironically, Hill, the self-help pioneer behind best-
team. In old footage you can see the glimpses of what socks $15 for sellers like 1937’s Think and Grow Rich, is now thought
he would become—the quickness, the hunger. Then, in pack of three to have largely fabricated tales of his own success. Fake
Adidas Originals
February 2012, a riot broke out at a stadium after an it until you make it, I guess.)
Egyptian league game between Al Masry and Al Ahly in → It’s easy to be cynical about self-help—be positive,
Port Said. Seventy-four people were killed. In response vintage tank top believe in yourself—but for Salah, it’s clear that it really
to the disaster, the Egyptian authorities suspended the American Apparel helped, enough that talking to him now can sometimes
from L Train Vintage
league and ordered that all games be played behind feel like a motivational seminar. “The best thing you
closed doors for two years, and in the aftermath, Salah’s pants $1,830 could have is a serious conversation with yourself. Just
shorts $905
representatives secured a transfer to Basel, one of the get a coffee and just sit like this and just ask yourself
Prada
biggest clubs in Switzerland. what you want,” he says. And: “Some people can’t face
cleats $160
For Salah, arriving in Basel was like plunging into ice themselves properly. But I have no problem with that.
Adidas
water. “The weather’s cold, and you can’t speak English, If I’m struggling, I just face myself and just feel where
can’t speak the [Swiss German] language. No one in the I am.”
 “YOU HAVE TWO CHOICES:
In Rome, Salah rented a separate house in the city
and built a private training pitch in his backyard so
TO TELL THE PEOPLE THAT
that he could work on his shooting outside of practice.
He started to work on his mind too. He practices THEY ARE RIGHT TO PUT YOU
both meditation and visualization every day, running
through the next game in detail, picturing both what ON A BENCH, OR TO PROVE
he wants to happen and—because he read Michael
Phelps does it—what could go wrong. “Some situations
you need to face before it happens, so when it happens
THEM WRONG. I NEEDED
you’ve already experienced it,” Salah says. He started
this mental routine during his second season at Roma,
TO PROVE THEM WRONG.”
which coincided with the best form of his career to that
point. He scored 15 goals and made 11 assists, leading
the team to a second-place finish in Serie A, which ulti- they should, “because they appreciate what you did for
mately led Liverpool to come calling again. This time, the club. I’ve been here for my fifth year now. I know the
he didn’t hesitate. club very well. I love the fans. The fans love me. But with
Still, there are moments that even visualization the administration, they have [been] told the situation.
can’t prepare you for. In Salah’s case, it was Liverpool’s It’s in their hands.”
2018 Champions League final against Real Madrid. If Liverpool is unwilling to match his wage demands—
The game should have been the Hallmark ending to entirely possible, given FSG’s reluctance to pay super-
Salah’s record-breaking first season back in the Premier star salaries both at Liverpool and at the Red Sox—there
League. Instead, in the 25th minute, Madrid’s infa- are few clubs in world soccer who could. Barcelona is
mously combative defender Sergio Ramos dragged notoriously broke. Real Madrid seemingly has its sights
Salah to the ground in an armlock, dislocating his on France striker Kylian Mbappe. There’s Paris Saint-
shoulder. Salah left the field in tears. Liverpool, visi- Germain, with its limitless Qatari-backed financing,
bly deflated, lost the game 3-1. (After the result, a law- but otherwise the only real contenders are the two
yer threatened to sue Ramos for 1 billion euros, citing Manchester clubs or Chelsea, and a move to any one of
“physical and psychological harm” to Salah and to the them would torch Salah’s status as a Liverpool legend. (I
Egyptian nation.) will confess here that I have been a Liverpool fan for 20
Worse, the injury ruled Salah out of the opening years. Yes, I asked him to stay. No, it didn’t help.)
game of the 2018 World Cup. The tournament was only Salah knows his own worth, and that his next deal
the third time Egypt had qualified, and the first in 28 may be his last chance to make big money. There is also
years. Salah himself had scored the goal that secured brand Salah to consider: He has sponsorship deals with
his country’s qualification, an injury-time penalty Adidas, Oppo, Uber, and Pepsi, each paying handsomely
against Congo. By the time of Egypt’s first game against for his image. (MBC, the Arabic TV channel, reportedly
Uruguay, Salah still hadn’t recovered. “I cried on the paid Salah $650,000 to interview him that day at the
bus, then I went to the toilet and cried on the toilet town hall.)
before the game, because I couldn’t play,” he says. Egypt He is 29 now. Conventional wisdom states that soccer
lost 2-0. Salah did play in the next two games, scoring players peak at around 30, although recent advances in
twice, but couldn’t prevent his team from crashing out sports science are changing that: Zlatan Ibrahimovic, for
of the group winless. example, is still scoring for AC Milan at 40. “It’s not just
Salah has said that he has come to accept the injury. Zlatan,” Salah says. “[Cristiano] Ronaldo is 36, [Karim]
“Injuries you can’t really control,” he says. “Everything Benzema, 34. All the top players at the moment, [Robert]
happens for a reason, I believe, and you have to deal Lewandowski, Messi, all of them are 34, 35.” At his house,
with it.” In the end, he took strength from it. The follow- Salah has built his own recovery suite, including a cryo-
ing year Liverpool made it to the final again, and won. therapy bath and hyperbaric chamber—things you’d
→ normally find only at a cutting-edge training facility or
SALAH’S LIVERPOOL CONTRACT is set to expire in the treatment center. “I have everything at home. It’s a hos-
tank top $890
summer of 2023, at which point he will be a free agent. Saint Laurent by pital,” Salah says.
Salah has frequently said he wants to stay; however, Anthony Vaccarello “He’s like a sponge for information. He has an inces-
negotiations with Liverpool’s owners, Fenway Sports pants $695 sant hunger for being better,” Klopp says. “He’s never
Group (which also owns the Boston Red Sox) over a Maryam Nassir satisfied. He’s so attentive to what we are asking of
new contract are at an impasse over Salah’s salary Zadeh him for what helps the team. But alongside that, his
demands—reportedly double his current deal, which commitment to individual improvement is remarkable.
grooming by larry
would put him among the best paid players in soccer. Whether it be the fitness and conditioning coaches or
king at a-frame
(Salah’s representatives say reports that Salah is cur- agency using larry the nutritionist or whoever, he looks for those small
rently paid $13.8 million per year are inaccurate but king haircare. margins everywhere.”
otherwise would not comment on negotiations.) “I want tailoring by michelle Salah rarely speaks publicly, and never about poli-
to stay, but it’s not in my hands. It’s in their hands,” warner. set design tics. This, you feel, is partly self-preservation: Salah’s
Salah says. “They know what I want. I’m not asking for by sean thomson visibility in Egypt and the Middle East means anything
@ the magnet
crazy stuff.” And besides, sewage plants and ambulances political he says or does is immediately international
agency. produced
don’t come cheap. by north six europe. news. In the Middle East and online, coverage of him
To Salah, it’s about more than the money. It’s about photographed at can sometimes verge on moral policing: When Salah
recognition. “The thing is when you ask for something holland hall. posted a picture on Instagram of his family celebrating
and they show you they can give you something,” he says, Christmas, it led to a torrent (continued on page 90)

6 6 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 MEET THE
SIX WINTER
OLYMPIANS
FROM
AROUND
THE WORLD

WHO ARE
INJECTING
THE GAMES
WITH FRESH
ENERGY.

6 8 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 From left:
Mikhail Sergachev,
Alexander
Ovechkin, and
Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Amalie Arena,
Tampa, Florida

P H O T O G R A P H
B Y Y S A P É R E Z
 just one piece of her increasingly
diversifying portfolio. She’s the
first athlete of Chinese descent
to take home gold at the X Games,
she signed a modeling contract
with IMG and has graced the
cover of Vogue Hong Kong, and
The Teenage Freeskier she recently got accepted at
Who’s Landing Tricks No Stanford with a near-perfect 1580
Woman Ever Has Before on her SATs—all before she
turned 18 last September.
EILEEN GU Gu says she picked up skiing
CHINA from her mother, a Chinese
immigrant who moved to America
Last fall, when freeskier Eileen in the ’80s and took to the sport
Gu became the first woman at the same time she was earning
to land a double cork 1440— an MBA at Stanford. In a way,
four full 360s incorporating two Gu is just retracing her mother’s
off-axis rotations in the air— footsteps. “[My mom] has always
from all over the world will she wasn’t surprised by what been a leader,” she says. “When
she felt. She had imagined the she first came from Beijing, she
sensations of nailing the trick went to Alabama and led a student
that morning, while brushing union protest for housing equity.…
will feature no shortage of her teeth. “That’s a really big She never felt that she was less
thing to me,” she says, than or not part of.” By skiing
“visualizing tricks by the rhythm for her mother’s ancestral home,
looking to become household of the wind in my ears.” When Gu is hoping that she can open
she landed it, she realized “that a dialogue and “promote common
nobody—no other girl before understanding” between the
me—has experienced that U.S. and China. While the move
rotation in the air.” To immortalize has been met with criticism from
the moment, she posted a a small contingent of American
video on Instagram, choosing to fans, and celebration from
soundtrack the milestone with many others, she’s gracefully
“Gosha” by the rapper $not, maneuvered through the conflict
who remind us that while the which includes the lyrics: “You and is thinking about her future
can’t hang. This is not your game.” from a global perspective. “It’s
Gu, who was born in the really important to me to be
U.S. and currently lives in San able to keep it cross-cultural,”
Francisco, will be representing she says. “No matter what I do.”
stories that feel universal. China at the Games. But that’s — R AY M O N D A N G

The Russian Hockey Team was eight years ago on home ice in Sochi. have raised back-to-back Stanley Cups
Looking for Redemption It ended with Ovechkin hanging his head at together with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
a press conference, solemnly apologizing These guys know how to win. “It’s a
ALEXANDER to his country.
With tufts of gray hair peeking out from
new tournament,” Sergachev says. “None
of us are looking at the past and saying,
OVECHKIN, ANDREI beneath Ovechkin’s helmet, some fans Oh, we lost.”
suspect this could be his final shot at gold The one knock on Ovechkin is he often
VASILEVSKIY, even though, at age 36, he’s still, well, seems like a different player on international
RUSSIAN HOCKEY TEAM: GROOMING, TONI JO PERUZZI.

MIKHAIL SERGACHEV Ovechkin. Through the first 22 games of

the 2021–22 NHL season, his 17th in the
ice—less assertive, less joyful—but he’s
ready to lead by example and feed off the
RUSSIA league, he clocked a preposterous 19 goals loose, youthful exuberance of his
for the Washington Capitals—on pace for teammates. “He’s gotten more mature on
his best offensive year ever. “I mean...the the ice,” Sergachev says. “He’s reading
way he plays now?” says Andrei Vasilevskiy, the game, he’s back-checking, he skates
Russia’s 27-year-old starting goaltender. like the wind. I want him to win, obviously,
“I think he’ll be able to play at another as a fan of his since I was a kid.” Even if
At first glance, Russia’s Olympic hockey Olympics in 2026.” this isn’t Ovechkin’s final chance at a medal,
team feels like a centerpiece for a dramatic And while the Russians have never it might well be his best chance. “The
sports movie just waiting to happen: lacked scoring prowess—“Brazilian soccer, most important thing is winning,” Ovechkin
Alexander Ovechkin, the most gifted goal World Cup ’94” is how Ovechkin describes says. “And when you win, you have the
scorer of his generation—maybe of any the team’s brand of hockey—this time best memories and you have the best
generation—has yet to win an Olympic they have a sturdy defense too. Vasilevskiy time.” Maybe there’s a sports movie in here
medal. The last time the three-time NHL and 23-year-old defenseman Mikhail after all—the warm and fuzzy kind.
MVP suited up for Russia at the Games Sergachev, both first-time Olympians, —YA N G -Y I G O H

7 0 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
EILEEN GU: GROOMING, EVANGELOS TZIMIKAS.

P H O T O G R A P H B Y D I R K B R U N I E C K I Stubaital, Austria
 The Famous
American Skier Who
Switched Allegiances

GUS
KENWORTHY
UNITED KINGDOM
“I know that I have more in the
tank, but I am very much nearing
my expiration date,” Gus
Kenworthy says with a world-
weary laugh. Though only 30, in
freestyle skier years that means
he’s about due for his AARP card.
Kenworthy first broke out at
the 2014 Sochi Games, where he
nabbed the silver for Team USA
but made headlines for adopting
a family of dogs that included
two puppies. Shortly after, he
came out as gay—a rare admission
in the bro-ified world of extreme
his own sports but one that he says led
pullover him to have the best season of his
and pants
career. “I had this weight off my
Nike
shoulders and I was free,” he says.
watch $7,900
Kenworthy has since gotten
Omega
considerably more famous than
your average skier, starring in a
Great Park Ice & season of American Horror Story,
Fivepoint Arena, booking a Prada campaign, and
Irvine, California
regularly posting thirst traps for
his 1.2 million Instagram followers.
This will be his final Olympics,
in the air for over half a second and and they’re notable for another
completing a punishing four revolutions, reason: He jumped the pond to ski
a freakish athletic feat that Chen can for the Great Britain team instead.
do better than anyone else in the world. Kenworthy, who was born in
If Chen lands all of his quads cleanly, the U.K. and has dual citizenship,
The Brainy Figure he’ll be hard to beat in Beijing. But, when said he started thinking about
Skater on a Remarkable you’re spinning at 400 revolutions per making the switch two Olympics
Hot Streak minute, that’s a big if. In his Olympic debut ago. Back in 2014, he qualified
in 2018, he stumbled on several jumps in for both slope-style and half-pipe
NATHAN his short program—figure skaters are judged skiing, but his spot for the

CHEN on both a short and long program. Physically,

he was there. “Mentally, I was blocked,”
latter event was given to skier
Torin Yater-Wallace. “It was just
USA he says. In his long program, he landed six so cut-and-dry the way they did it.
quads, jumping from 17th to finish fifth. I think that they didn’t take into
Long before he was America’s next great He won the next 15 events he entered. consideration that I’m a human
figure skating hope, Olympian Nathan Chen The youngest of five, Chen has two older being [who’s] spent his whole life
was just a three-year-old boy hoping to play brothers, who work in finance and aerospace; basically to get that spot,” he says.
hockey. Goalie, specifically. “I didn’t know one of his sisters is at Apple; and the “Even if they were going to make
jack about hockey, but I thought the gear other is a cofounder of a biotech company. that decision—which is ultimately
looked supercool,” he says, now 22. His mom Chen says they’re a “huge chess family” their call—I still feel like they
brought him to a public skating session— and tries to apply the lessons he’s learned could have handled it a lot more
where he put on some figure skates. He was from the game daily: how “being in a highly gently, because it was hurtful.”
hooked. At worst, he figured it’d be a unique emotional state” won’t help solve the He’s looking forward to a fresh
enough extracurricular to get him into problem; how even when things don’t start. “I’m so appreciative of
college. (He’s currently on leave from Yale.) look great on the board, you figure out the the sport, because it’s really given
And then he became a three-time world best way forward. And where does he me this life,” he says. “But I also
champion and an Olympic medalist. place in the Chen family chess rankings? realized that there is just so
By age 10, Chen was competing in the U.S. “Oh, dude, I’m on the bottom,” he says. much more to life than skiing and
Figure Skating Championships. At 15, he No matter: He might soon be the only one sports and winning or losing.”
landed his first quad, which requires hanging to own Olympic gold. — C L AY S K I P P E R — G A B R I E L L A PA I E L L A

7 2 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 P H O T O G R A P H B Y Z A M A R V E L E Z
 shorts $510
Prada

Pause Wellness
Studio, West
Hollywood,
California
G U S K E N WO RT H Y: G R O O M I N G , T H E A I ST E N E S U S I N G K E V I N M U R P H Y.

P H O T O G R A P H B Y A A R O N S I N C L A I R F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 7 3
 NOW MORE THAN EVER, SKIERS AND SNOWBOARDERS ARE

The storied team

at Air-Glaciers
makes roughly
2,500 rescue
runs in the Swiss
Alps each year.
 BY
JOSHUA
HAMMER

VENTURING FURTHER IN THE BACKCOUNTRY—AT A MOMENT WHEN CLIMATE CHANGE IS

MAKING MOUNTAIN CONDITIONS MORE DANGEROUS. THE RESULT: IT’S NEVER

BEEN A BUSIER TIME FOR THE WORLD’S MOST ELITE HELICOPTER RESCUE TEAM.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 7 5
 experts at the Institute for Snow and He was lying facedown on his stomach
Avalanche Research. The heightened ava- with his legs extended, unsure of just how
lanche warnings that had been issued just much snow he was sealed beneath. With
over a week earlier had been downgraded for his hands near his face, a small pocket of
the last few days. The 32-year-old mechanic, a air had been fortuitously preserved near
skier since early childhood, wasn’t too worried. his mouth, but breathing was already get-
The first one off the ridge, Jaccard plunged ting difficult. Then, crackling over his walk-
into the powder and glided downward ie-talkie, he heard the urgent voice of one of
across a wide snowfield. His two friends fol- his companions
lowed at a safe distance, a few dozen yards “Joël, do you hear me?”
behind. Then Jaccard turned his skis down The microphone dangled on a cord
the 45-degree slope and shot through a pass extending from his backpack. But he
between hills. He skidded over ice patches couldn’t answer. He couldn’t move his arms.
FOR DAYS IT had been snowing, but now and plowed through drifts, picking up speed, He lay immobile, struggling to breathe for
the clouds were gone. And way up here, high trying to suss out a route in the trackless about three minutes. Then everything faded
above the tree line, where the storm had snow. He made one turn, then a wider one. to black.
wreathed the mountaintop, the only evidence Then he sensed trouble.
of the foul weather was the snow that it had Up ahead, the wind had gone to work OVER THE MOUNTAIN, in the Rhône Valley
left behind. It was everywhere, spread across on the fresh powder that had been coming town of Sion, Gérald Maret was spending
the face of the peak and down the rocky ridges down all week, whipping the snow into an that morning in a small office building at the
like a thick layer of frosting on a cake and enormous drift—a huge pillow-like mound, local airport. It was 11:30 on January 24, 2021,
glittering against a cerulean sky. known as a windslab, or plaque à vent. when an urgent dispatch came in: Avalanche.
Joël Jaccard squinted hard in the bright Jaccard had spent enough time in the moun- Roc d’Orzival. One person, equipped with air-
light and shuffled in his skis. He took a long tains to apprehend the danger of this sort of bag and DVA, missing.
look down the backside of the mountain, drift. The new pile of snow, resting precari- Maret knew the drill. The 53-year-old had
studying the way the high slopes of Roc d’Or- ously atop the old, unstable snowpack, could flown helicopters for two decades for Air-
zival—a 9,400-foot arrowhead-shaped protru- break off and charge down the slope at the Glaciers, one of the most storied mountain
sion in the Swiss Alps—fell away beneath him. slightest disturbance. rescue squads in the world. Since 1965, the
With his gaze, he traced a path down to the vil- Jaccard tried to slow himself; he swerved renowned helicopter service has patrolled
lage of Grimentz, more than 5,000 feet below, but couldn’t avoid it. Suddenly, he was upon the high mountain passes of Valais, one
taking mental measure of the obstacle course the drift, and then he heard an ominous, low of the largest of Switzerland’s 26 cantons.
before him. Steep traverses, vertical crevasses, rumbling sound. Turning his head, he saw Sprinkled across six alpine bases, the outfit
ice patches, and spines of black rock. It was behind him a fissure open in the snow, 40 maintains a fleet of 16 high-altitude-ready
a treacherous run, unsecured and unsuper- yards back, triggered by his body weight. He helicopters and is perhaps the most effec-
vised, suitable only for experts—the ultimate watched as gravity took hold of the dislodged tive unit of its kind in the world; certainly
“free ride,” as he thought of it. Jaccard and his snow, sending it down the hill. The enormous it’s one of the busiest. Air-Glaciers flies about
two friends had trudged to this off-trail spot white wall was sliding in his direction. 2,500 missions a year (augmenting its oper-
by taking a ski resort lift to the highest station Jaccard scrambled atop a rise, but the ating budget by selling Rescue Cards that
and then carrying their skis uphill for another avalanche, moving now at 60 miles an hour, entitle its 80,000 or so subscribers to receive

AS THE SNOW BEGAN TO ENGULF HIM, JOËL JACCARD COULD SEE THE BRIGHT
15 minutes. Now he was eager to get moving; quickly met him. He felt the immense weight financial coverage for all rescue costs not
he figured it would take them 30 minutes to of the wave as it plowed into his back, tear- picked up by their insurers). The group’s ros-
reach the village. ing off his skis, fracturing one of his ver- ter of seasoned pilots prides itself on being
Of course, out here, Jaccard knew, things tebrae, and pummeling him down in the able to reach even the most forbidding spots
could always go wrong. Like many experi- direction of the ground. As the snow gath- in Valais in mere minutes.
enced skiers of the alpine backcountry, he ered all around him, Jaccard groped for the Seconds after receiving the call, Maret
took precautions. Poised on the ridgeline, cord on his airbag and gave it a ferocious sprinted onto the tarmac and climbed into
Jaccard made a mental checklist of the pull just before he was fully engulfed. The the cockpit of one of the base’s two Écureuil
equipment he carried: shovel, collapsible movement released 200 liters of compressed AS350s. As he fired the engine, a pair of res-
probe, walkie-talkie. In his red canvas back- air from a steel cylinder, which ballooned cue guides, Gérald Mathys, 50, and Pascal
pack he had stowed an airbag that, with the a dual airbag system to life. He hoped the Gaspoz, 52, raced behind him. The two had
yank of a ripcord, could inflate during an inflated device would carry him above the both been flying into avalanches and other
avalanche, propelling him to the surface smaller bits of snow and ice, and keep him calamities for Air-Glaciers for decades. They
of the cascading river of snow. If he found from being buried. had quickly grabbed from the hangar a
himself buried, Jaccard’s radio transceiver— But it wasn’t enough. The torrent was stretcher, some shovels, beacons, collapsible
known in French as a détecteur de victimes unrelenting and Jaccard could see the bright snow probes, and an antenna that dangles
d’avalanche, or DVA—was designed to help whites and blues of snow and sky now give from the helicopter’s underbelly to facilitate
rescuers locate him. way to darkness. For the first time, he felt the the search for a transmitter’s signal. Gear in
But the chances of a disaster on Roc d’Or- cold rolling over him, beginning to encase hand, they piled into the chopper and Maret
zival seemed to have diminished this morn- him, choking off any access he had to air. lifted quickly off the pavement. But before
ing. Hours earlier, Jaccard had checked the Instinctively, Jaccard stuck his hands over they could plot a course into the mountains,
weather report provided by the Davos-based his mouth. Then, finally, all went still. they had a quick stop to make.

7 6 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 Now the danger that
Flight crews at lurks on these runs is
Air-Glaciers are intensifying. The effects
able to reach any of climate change—for
spot in their vast instance, variable win-
alpine territory
ters in which long peri-
in minutes.
ods without snow are
followed by huge accumulations—are mak-
ing Alpine conditions harder to predict. As
temperatures rise, warmer, wetter air is cre-
ating fiercer storms that drop snow in fitful
patterns. Fluctuations in weather and wind
influence how the fresh powder interacts
with old snowpack. In 2019, the Institute for
Snow and Avalanche Research reported that
approximately two to three times more snow
than normal had fallen in the Swiss Alps that
January. As the weather grows more erratic,
and as the popularity of winter sports nudges
skiers and snowboarders further from the
crammed routes and into the backcoun-
try, the risks are mounting. Over a four-day
Maret zipped over the Rhône, banked low, in Switzerland; Valais routinely accounts for period in January 2021, off-piste skiers and
and brought the helicopter down in a quiet a sizable portion of the toll. snowboarders set off eight avalanches that
residential section of Sion. Pierre Féraud, The danger is felt even by those who don’t left eight free-riders dead. “Valais is the cen-
a 55-year-old Air-Glaciers physician, venture onto the slopes. Disaster sometimes ter of it all,” Pierre Féraud told me.
climbed aboard. He’d been passing the day comes down from the mountains, as it did The threats may be changing, but the
at home; on vacation officially, but the only on August 30, 1965, when two million cubic region’s place in the annals of rescue lore
doctor available. meters of ice and debris broke off the Allalin goes back centuries: Valais is the very place
Seven minutes had elapsed since the alert. Glacier in Valais, swallowing up a dam project where organized mountain rescue is said
Aloft again, Maret roared southeast, and crushing 88 workers, the worst avalanche to have begun. In the 1700s, monks at the
skirting the Château de Tourbillon, a in recent Swiss history. Five years later, in Grand St.-Bernard monastery, perched on
13th-century turreted castle perched on an the darkness of a February morning in 1970, an 8,000-foot pass between Switzerland and
outcropping above Sion. He gained speed, while the village of Reckingen slept, 1.8 mil- Italy, began employing Saint Bernards to
reaching 150 miles an hour as he guided lion cubic meters of snow broke away from help sniff out travelers lost in the snow on
the chopper over glacier-carved valleys and the Bächji Alp and tumbled toward the town. the treacherous mountain pilgrimage route
gorges, blanketed in brilliant new snow. Thirty people were killed, including 19 army referred to as the White Death. (Barry, the
Maret, who’d been flying in the Alps and officers sleeping in an army barracks. And in all-time rescue champion, saved 40 people
the Canadian Rockies for years, was used to 1999, a dozen people in the town of Evolène between 1800 and 1812.)

W H I T E S A N D B LU E S O F S N OW A N D S K Y G I V E WAY TO DA R K N E S S . H E F E LT T H E C O L D
the vicissitudes of high-altitude flying—the R O L L O V E R H I M . T H E N , F I N A L LY, A L L W E N T S T I L L .
ice fog that can obscure ski lift cables and
hide canyon walls, the tricky winds that can were lost when a huge mass of snow between Later, Swiss military pilots pioneered air-
send a chopper careening. Today, however, the peaks of Sasseneire and Pointe du Tsaté borne mountain rescue in 1946 when they fit-
was cloudless and the air was nearly still. detached and rocketed down the mountain. ted skis to a plane and landed atop a glacier in
The visibility was perfect and he could see, But the vast majority of the region’s ava- the Bernese Oberland, saving the passengers
just over a mile ahead, the looming jagged lanche deaths, some 90 percent, involve and crew of a crashed American plane. But it
peak of Roc d’Orzival. people in uncontrolled terrain, such as ski- would be a trickier rescue mission that would
Twenty-two minutes had now passed since ers in hors piste runs, that is, skiers using ultimately inspire the need for a full-time
the call reached headquarters. unmarked or unprepared routes. These pow- professional service like Air-Glaciers. In 1963,
OPENING PAGES, PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY

dery, untrammeled runs often can be found Hermann Geiger, an alpine guide and helicop-
DOWN BELOW, the fantastically imposing on the back side of established resorts, ter pilot from Sion nicknamed the Flying Saint
terrain of Valais spread out in all directions. in areas unmanned by ski patrols and unpro- Bernard, responded to an emergency call to
A ski mecca, the French-speaking region in tected by other standard safety measures— assist an injured guide who’d been climbing a
the corner of southwest Switzerland is dom- such as regular detonations of explosives glacier. Geiger flew his small Bell 47 chopper to
inated by the iconic Matterhorn. The area is that touch off controlled avalanches and the scene, but was prevented by vicious winds
OF AIR-GLACIERS (2).

buffeted in winter by blasting winds that pile keep the mountain clear of precarious accu- from landing. Stretcher-bearers were forced to
unstable drifts on steep mountain inclines. mulation. Not surprisingly many rescuers— make the arduous climb to reach the man, who
This has helped it earn a reputation as one often exceptional skiers themselves—tend survived with a broken femur.
of the most treacherous and avalanche-prone to regard the untrained and unsafe off-piste The incident galvanized Geiger to revolu-
spots in the Alps. Since 1936, an average of amateurs with little admiration. Their dis- tionize alpine rescue. With the help of two
24 people have died per year in avalanches may has simmered for years. fellow guides, Bruno Bagnoud and Fernand

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y Y V E S B A C H M A N N F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 7 7
Martignoni, he persuaded a Swiss bank to their certification. On this November day, While the Air-Glaciers squads might
lend the money to purchase an Aerospatiale the simulated mission involved evacuating train to face all manner of alpine calamity,
Alouette III, a powerful jet-engine heli- stranded passengers from a crippled chairlift it’s the threat of avalanche that haunts the
copter that could reach high altitudes. The as it swayed above the slopes of a ski resort. high slopes of Valais with special signifi-
same year, the men founded Air-Glaciers. I was invited to play the part of a hapless skier cance. Every recreational skier and rescuer
The partners soon bought more aircraft, in need of helicopter help. who has ever swooshed through Swiss back-
hired experienced pilots, and expanded It was a beautiful day to imagine a disas- country lives in dread of them. “You hear that
their operation. ter. From my perch on the stalled lift, I could crack and the silence while nature holds its

F O R A L L T H E S A F E G UA R D S I N T R O D U C E D I N R E C E N T Y E A R S TO L OW E R T H E R I S K O F
Perhaps not surprisingly, given the risks make out the snow-encrusted Matterhorn breath, waiting for the mountain to go,” one
they took on, two of the three founders met looming over the brown alpine foothills. expert alpinist, who has lost several friends
premature ends: Geiger was killed in 1966 I watched as an Écureuil rotored into view, in avalanches and narrowly avoided being
while performing a routine instruction flight dangling two rescuers secured to a 65-foot- killed herself, told me. “Even the birds go
in his Piper J3C; Martignoni died in a plane long cable below. Soon, two yellow-helmeted quiet. You can feel your breath thundering
crash in the Swiss Alps 16 years later. Bagnoud, men landed on the edge of my chair, each in your ears.” Féraud shared with me a video
who is now 86, once harbored hopes that his wearing a harness and carrying a second, captured by an off-pister’s helmet camera
son would carry on Air-Glaciers’ daring work. along with coiled ropes and a dozen carabin- in 2020 as an avalanche roared over him: It
Indeed, François Xavier Bagnon was 24 when ers. I held still as one of the men expertly showed swirling granules of snow, flashes of
he became the youngest helicopter rescue secured a harness around me, clipped a car- sky, then darkness, accompanied by moans
pilot in Swiss history. But like so many in his abiner to the cable, and wrapped his legs of pain and screams of terror. The skier had
family’s circle, he died tragically. In 1986, not around my waist. Then the chopper hoisted somehow managed to avoid being buried,
long after he joined the fraternity of rescue us up and away. After an exhilarating one- but he’d inhaled ice into his lungs and was
pilots, his helicopter crashed in a sandstorm minute ride, we were gently deposited in spitting blood.
in the Sahara Desert while he was surveying a landing zone where I watched the pilots “Avalanche… Je ne peux pas réspirer,” he
the running of the famed Paris-Dakar rally, an and the guides repeat the exercise again and cried over his cellphone to the emergency
accident that also claimed the life of the race’s again over the next sev- dispatcher. I can’t breathe. An Air-Glaciers
organizer, the noted French motorcycle racer eral hours—practicing helicopter-borne crew arrived minutes later
Thierry Sabine. The view from with cables of various and saved him.
Since those early days, Air-Glaciers has the chopper as length and envisioning,
become famous in Switzerland for its rapid rescuer Gérald all the while, the wind JOËL JACCARD HAD been buried for nearly
Mathys reached
deployments in Alpine disasters. They’ve and the snow and jeop- 30 minutes when Gérald Maret whirled his
the airbag that
extracted the injured from deep crevasses and Jaccard had ardy they would no doubt chopper across the ridgeline of Roc d’Orzival
carried them down from towering ledges on deployed before be called on to confront and spotted, from high above, the telltale mess
high mountain walls. In March 2012, rescuers he was buried. later that winter. of the avalanche zone. He circled for a better
raced into action after a school bus crashed
inside a tunnel deep in the mountains near
Sierre, killing 22 children, four teachers, and
two drivers. Six years later, they helicoptered
into the Pigne d’Arolla in the Pennine Alps
after 14 cross-country skiers from Italy and
France lost their way in fog at 12,000 feet. Air-
Glaciers guides searched for the lost hikers
for 18 hours, saving the lives of all but five,
who had frozen to death overnight.
The skills to respond to such a wide vari-
ety of high-mountain disasters are honed by
the Air-Glaciers rescuers through intensive
training that begins with a three-year Swiss-
mandated course in alpine guiding. That’s
followed by months of specialized practice
and a yearlong paramedic course. Every 12
months, just before ski season, each of Air-
Glaciers’ rescue guides and pilots must also
complete a weeklong proficiency course
designed to refine their skills in everything
from post-avalanche searches to high-alti-
tude extractions.
During their most-recent training mission,
before this winter’s ski season, I choppered
with a team to a mountaintop not far from
Sion, where I joined 30 guides and 30 pilots
from across Valais who’d come to renew

7 8 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 look, looping the helicopter wide across a As Gaspoz and Mathys discussed whether face sticking out from the snow,” he recalled.
field of broken ice and snow nearly 200 yards they might need the dogs, Maret scanned the The skier had lain entombed throughout the
wide and 600 yards long. Jaccard’s two friends ridges, searching for warning signs of the frigid night, but his head had stayed above
stood near the top of the churned debris, just biggest threat to first responders: a second ground. Mathys dug him out, cold but unin-
beneath the jagged edge that marked where avalanche. A danger with which Gaspoz was jured, and transported him to the hospital.
the slab had torn loose. They were trying des- tragically familiar. Now Mathys was looking down with the
perately to pick up Jaccard’s DVA signal with Twenty years earlier, as six mountain same intense gaze. And suddenly, there it
their own digital beacons. climbers were ascending an ice column in was: a shock of orange in the snow 200 feet

DEATH BY AVAL ANCHE, IT ’S THE EXPERTISE OF THE RESCUER THAT OF TEN DE TERMINES
Introduced to the market in 1971, these WHETHER THOSE LOST CAN BE FOUND IN TIME.
transceivers, which emit an ever-stronger
signal as one approaches a buried victim, heavy snow above Zinal in the Val d’Anni- below. His first thought was that a high-
were hailed as revolutionary when they viers, an avalanche surged over the group visibility vest had been torn off the skier.
came out. The technology is not without its and swept a young woman away. Air-Glaciers Then he realized: It’s an airbag. A piece of
limitations, though. Using the devices typi- rushed a dog team and 23 rescuers to the the latex balloon that Jaccard had deployed
cally takes practice—and overcoming some scene—among them, Gaspoz’s older brother before being swallowed by the snow was now
difficulty. With a range of between 40 and 80 Nicolas. As they worked, another slide poking through the surface.
meters, they often require searchers—some- roared down on them. “It came too far and “Airbag!” Mathys shouted excitedly
times shocked and exhausted avalanche sur- too fast for us to hear it. It was panic. I heard through his microphone.
vivors themselves—to cover vast distances screams,” one survivor told the local press. Maret guided the Écureuil down to the
through heavy snow, while precious time is The avalanche buried six rescuers. Four snowy surface and gently put the helicop-
slipping away. “They’re inexact, like a blind were quickly pulled out alive. But two men— ter’s skids on the ground. Mathys leaped out,
minesweeper, and they take tons of practice,” Edouard Gross, 24, and Nicolas, 36—couldn’t ducking low beneath the spinning rotors, and
the veteran off-piste skier who’s lost several be located. Pascal had been working with his ran toward the airbag. Jaccard’s companions,
friends in avalanches told me. brother earlier that morning before being who’d been searching up the mountain, raced
Inside the cab of the circling chopper, the called away to another rescue. “I was back 300 yards down the hill to meet the rescuers.
rescue team could tell from Jaccard’s friends at the base on standby, and then the second “Pull the shovel out of my backpack,”
that his location was a mystery. Every moment avalanche came and swept him off,” he told Mathys screamed at them.
felt crucial. Pascal Gaspoz, a rangy ex-cop from me. Rescuers found Gross’s body later that Mathys had done the math; he knew the
a village in the Val d’Hérens, was assessing day. At nightfall, they called off the search for stats. He realized that in all probability, after
their options. Among the first guides to join Nicolas. Two hundred rescuers came to the 30 minutes under the snow, the man was
Air-Glaciers after the Swiss government ter- mountain the next day. They discovered his likely dead. But his experience also told him
minated its own police-rescue operations and body at the bottom of the avalanche field at that the rescuers might have a chance. They
turned the responsibility fully over to private noon. The event was one of the most tragic in had to start digging.
companies in 1995, he’d been involved in hun- Air-Glaciers’ long history.
dreds of avalanche rescues over three decades; As Maret flew over the avalanche zone, IN THE MINDS of the rescuers that day, a cease-
he knew, more than just about anyone, just he pinpointed the spot where the slab had less stopwatch had begun running as soon
how crucial their next moves would be. detached from the snowpack before shooting as the emergency call reached Air-Glaciers’
“Gérald, what do you think? Do we need down the mountain. He studied the long ser- headquarters. After all, when it comes to who
the dogs?” he shouted into his microphone to rated edge that had been left and determined lives and who dies, it’s time that often predicts.
Gérald Mathys. that the risk of a second snowslide was low— Research on Swiss and Canadian avalanche
Clearly, the beacons on the ground weren’t there was no more fresh powder to fall. He victims has shown that those buried for up
working; perhaps, Gaspoz figured, a more tra- looked for a place to put the chopper down. to 18 minutes have a 91 percent probability of
ditional technique could. Air-Glaciers main- Mathys, meanwhile, had busied himself survival; but for those buried longer, the sur-
tains a database of 45 trained rescue dogs and trying to determine what rescuers refer to as vival rate drops precipitously. Of those who,
handlers in Sion and the surrounding valleys; the missing skier’s “history.” After decades like Jaccard, have been snowed under for up
at least four teams are always on call. Although of rescues, he’d come to realize that his most to 35 minutes, the likelihood of surviving is
modern detection technology has improved useful tool was often his eyes. Scouting the 34 percent. Beyond that point, according to
dramatically in recent years, the compara- scene out the window, he followed the skier’s the researchers, the survival rate declines to
tively old-school help that a canine can provide trail just above the disaster area, calculating less than 20 percent then flattens out. That’s
remains remarkably useful in a giant ava- his route, and then scanning the surface of because as hypothermia kicks in—about 35
lanche zone. Dogs, which can smell through the avalanche field, trying to spot a clue in minutes into such an ordeal—bodily functions
between 12 and 15 feet of snow and can work the debris—a glove, a backpack, a protruding slow and oxygen consumption decreases. As
for an hour before requiring a replacement, appendage, any trace that stood out amid the Féraud, the Air-Glaciers’ physician pointed
are still among the world’s most reliable and sea of whiteness. out to me, the chances of surviving an ava-
durable sensors. Typically, after a rescue team A few years ago, Mathys arrived by heli- lanche remain roughly the same whether one
has been deployed, another chopper is dis- copter at the scene of a massive day-old ava- lies buried in the snow for 35 minutes or for an
patched behind it with a handler and a dog lanche in the Valais; a search for a missing hour and a half.
(very few, it turns out, are Saint Bernards; the skier had been called off the previous night Of course, Féraud and the Air-Glaciers
canines pitching in nowadays include mostly because of darkness and the danger of a sec- teams had also seen cases that defied physics
German and Belgian shepherds, Labrador ond slide. As he circled above the zone, some- and biology—extraordinary incidents where
retrievers, Golden retrievers, and Schnauzers). thing caught his attention. “I suddenly saw a victims simply got (continued on page 91)

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 7 9
 From
Iverson and Kyrgios
to Vick and Zidan
e,
we present the greatest
living renegades,
rebels, and mavericks
in the history of
global sports.
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 8 1
box, the MVP, the all-American
hero. But sometime later, in your
early teenage years, maybe, a
different, darker shade of athletic
superstar takes hold in your
mind. The punks and the bad
boys, the uncoachable hotheads,
the men who mirror your own
angst and inner rebellion. You’re
16 years old and totally transfixed
by ski god Bode Miller, missing
the podium but making the
party. The sphinx-like Zinedine
Zidane, inexplicably headbutting

OPENING PAGES: JOHN MCENROE, BE T TMANN/GE T T Y IMAGES; TR AE YOUNG, CURTIS COMPTON/ATL ANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION/ TNS/AL AMY
an Italian defender in the last

LIVE NEWS. THESE PAGES: ZINEDINE ZIDANE, JOHN MACDOUGALL /AFP/GET T Y IMAGES; TRAE YOUNG, KEVIN C. COX /GET T Y IMAGES SPORT/
gesture of his career. The mulleted

G E T T Y I M A G E S ; D A R RY L ST R AW B E R RY, TO N Y I N Z E R I L LO /A L L S P O RT/ G E T T Y I M A G E S ; K Y L E T R O U P, B O B L E V E Y/ ST R I N G E R / G E T T Y I M A G E S .
John Daly, teeing off with a
Marlboro in his mouth. As long
as there have been sports, there
Zinedine
Zidane
have been athletes with the exchange with the referee after the red card, the ignominious
swagger to defy convention. walk off the pitch past the trophy-in-waiting. Zinedine Zidane’s
Those who played only by rules shocking headbutt of Marco Materazzi in the waning minutes of
they wrote for themselves.

8 2 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 Darryl
Strawberry

KYLE
TROUP
Kyle Troup didn't set out to buck
convention. The Afro’d son of
bowling legend Guppy Troup, he
picked up the sport when he
was just three years old. So he
did what all kids that age do: He
grabbed the ball with two hands
and let it rip down the lane. And
then he did it again. And again.
For the rest of his life. “I had to
bowl two-handed because I didn’t
have enough strength to bowl
one-handed,” says Troup, who
would sometimes catch flak
from traditionalists who thought
his style was goofy, perhaps
even unmanly. “But luckily for
me, as I got older, my father
never tried to change my style.”
He stuck with it: Bowling with
two hands gave him more control,
more power, more rotations-per-
minute. And now, he’s not only
one of the highest earners in the
bowling world, he’s also part of a
new vanguard changing the sport.
“Twenty, 25 years ago, nobody
really knew about two-handed
bowling,” he says proudly. “Fast-
forward to today, 60 percent
of all youth bowlers are probably
bowling two-handed.” As for
his wild fits—bright blue pants,
shirts with flames—that’s all
thanks to Dad, too. “Guppy wore
wild pants, very wild designs back
in the ’80s. It’s a Troup tradition.”
— C H R I S G AY O M A L I

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 8 3
 Kieron
Pollard
The latest in Trinidad and
Tobago’s storied line of
cricketers, Kieron Pollard is
renowned for his volcanic
power. Built like a heavyweight
boxer, he holds the bat like a
broom in his mammoth grip.
Last March, he became one of
three batsmen to hit six sixes in
an international over when he
smashed the hapless Sri Lankan
spinner Akila Dananjaya to all
parts of Antigua’s Coolidge
Cricket Ground. At 34, Pollard
is celebrated as a hero, yet he
was long cast as a villain—a
mercenary who prioritized club
over country, focusing on the
lucrative T20 format of the
game. Raised by a single mother
in a tough town outside Port of

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Spain, Pollard made the hard
choices in his career he needed

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to in order to survive. The rise of
T20 cricket over the past decade
coincided with his emergence,
and he plied his trade in leagues
across the world, becoming
a lavishly compensated star.
“The criticism against him
wasn’t fair at all,” says Trinidad
and Tobago’s national cricket
coach, David Furlonge. “Cricket
is no longer just a sport—it’s a
livelihood. It’s also how Kieron
has looked after his family.”
—CHE KURRIEN

Allen Allen Iverson’s breakthrough moment came at the 1997 All-Star

Game in Cleveland. He wore cornrows. “That was huge,” says jour-
Iverson nalist Chris Broussard, who covered that game. “In the Black com-
munity, that was just a natural hairstyle. But the thought had always
been, when you step into white America, you had to play the game, tone it down. Now
it was like, ‘Wow, this dude is really being Black in mainstream America.’ Allen’s mes-
sage was, ‘Be yourself.’ He was merging hip-hop and basketball. That was a first.”
Iverson, known for his ankle-breaking crossover dribble, had crossed the cultures
of the game he lived for and the music he lived by. He was also simply being Allen
Iverson, a product of Newport News, Virginia—Newport “Bad” News, as it was called
by residents of its projects. His whole career, Iverson did it his way: lived his way,
dressed his way, played his way. He owned every dribble of his life with an honesty
his haters could never deny. His famous rant about missing practice is much quoted.
A final salvo to reporters near the end of that press conference is less remembered:
“I bleed like y’all.” Did he ever. Such heart this man has. — S K I P B AY L E S S

BODEMILLER
Just how bad was Bode Miller’s
an Olympic level.” As Miller,
now 44, reflects, “There were
certainly moments where I was
I should’ve done something
different. I wanted people to see
me enjoying my life and having
bad-boy image? Bad enough defiant for the sake of being a party and charging.” Charging
that his own uncle called him defiant—but we’re talking less meant attacking every downhill,
the “greatest underachieving than 1 percent of the time.” even if it cost him the race. “I
ski racer in history.” Bad What looked like defiance, he raced 450 World Cups,” he says.
enough that his most famous says, was authenticity. The “I crashed in 200-plus of them.”
Olympic moment didn’t come American public wanted as many But he still won six Olympic
on the slopes but when he told medals as possible—a priority medals. “Am I proud of what
a reporter, after missing the that Miller didn’t share. “If I blew I did, and how I did it?” he asks.
podium in ’06, that at least he out my knee racing, I didn’t want “The answer is a resounding
“got to party and socialize at to look back and be like, dang, yes.” — C L AY S K I P P E R

8 4 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 NICK
KYRGIOS take down the Big Three on
multiple occasions. And he’s
tennis.) Coaches tried to
straighten him out for years
“I haven’t had a coach for done so while putting on a (and mitigate his occasional
about five years now,” says Nick show nearly every time he steps on-court meltdowns), but Kyrgios
Kyrgios, the 26-year-old Aussie on the court, hitting cheeky only knows one way to play:
tennis star whose untamed underhand serves, physics- like himself. “I’m just on my own
playing style has made him defying tweeners, and overhead wavelength, man. I don’t really
one of the most controversial jump smashes that rival Vince give a fuck about what the media
says or anything like that. I’m just
trying to be better every day.…
I just always wanted to be myself
out there.” — S A M U E L H I N E

Luis
Suárez
It wasn’t just the biting, as
shocking as it was to see
Uruguayan soccer star Luis
Suárez attack the shoulder of
the Italian Giorgio Chiellini
like a plate of ribs during the
2014 World Cup—the third such
time he had chomped down on
the opposition. It was also the
dramatic diving. And the devilish
hand ball in the 2010 World Cup
that denied Ghana a sure goal
and led to Uruguay’s quarterfinal
victory. And the racially charged
row with Manchester United’s
Patrice Evra that earned him
an eight-game ban. Off the
pitch, he was shy, sweet even;
on the pitch, he transformed
into something else entirely,
something even his wife didn’t
recognize. “He was as close as
world football has had for a long
time to a WWF-level wrestling
heel,” Roger Bennett told GQ.
“But a wrestling heel capable of
sublime moments of otherworldly
football domination.” Suárez
won the European Golden Shoe
twice, interrupting Ronaldo
and Messi’s stranglehold on
the award, but you could never
Cam He’s the NFL’s most defiant provocateur in the pocket, the
modern Black quarterback who set football on fire. A man
be sure what you would get—a
wonder goal or something
Newton like that is bound to come with a slew of haters, but Newton
smiles through it all. “Being around Cam, there’s an imme-
more sinister. “There is a sense
in South American football that
the ends justify the means,” said
diate gravity and energy you haven’t felt before,” says Marshall Newhouse, Bennett. “It was the mental side
an offensive tackle who used to block for Newton on the Carolina Panthers. of his game, the garra charrúa,
“If you’re around football long enough, you grow up expecting this corporate, the warrior spirit, that would take
CEO type at quarterback. That’s what most owners want, someone buttoned-up him to some pretty dark places.”
and mostly white. But Cam? Cam just broke the mold.” —T Y L E R R . T Y N E S —ERIC WILLS

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 8 5
Kimi Räikkön
en
“Iceman is his nickname, because
he comes from Finland, a cold place,
but he also seemed a fairly cold
person. This is the kid who turned
up giving monosyllabic answers as
part of his disdain for the press, who
was fast asleep half an hour before
his first qualifying session. He joked
about taking a shit when Michael
Schumacher was being given a

MICHAEL
lifetime achievement award, but it
underplays how seriously he took
it. He had a singular focus, which number one in NFL history; he was also the first num-
was to drive cars as fast as humanly
possible. The other bullshit? He
never had any time for it. Formula 1
hasn’t seen anyone like him since
VICK ber one quarterback draft pick to go to federal prison,
for dogfighting charges, at the height of his career. So
go the contradictions of Michael Vick, a one-of-one in
sports history: still the most electric athlete to ever play the position but fated to
James Hunt. All Ferrari drivers be remembered by some for other reasons entirely. Vick played with swagger and
usually have to learn Italian so they style and grace; he drove opponents to insanity and beyond. There was no defense
can speak to the Italian press. Kimi
for him, except what he would do to himself—and even then, after 14 months in
never bothered so he could never be
forced into talking to them. He went
prison, he was still able to return to the game, reformed, humbled but unbowed,
and drove rally for a bit and famously and once again make grown men look silly. LeSean McCoy, a teammate of Vick’s in
would have the car in a ditch or in a Philadelphia, remembers his arrival in the city. “There would be so many protest-

Charles

KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN: CLIVE MASON/GET T Y IMAGES SPORT/GET T Y IMAGES. MICHAEL VICK:

BRIAN FINKE, GQ, 2003. CHARLES BARKLEY: THE SPORTING NEWS/GETTY IMAGES.
Barkley

the ante with his unrepentant

provocations. On his gambling:
“I want to be dead broke when
I keel over. I don’t want to leave
all that money for my freeloading
family.” On the Golden State
Warriors: “I’m never going to like
that little girly basketball where
you have to outscore people.”
As Kenny Smith, his Inside the
NBA cohost, told GQ: “He has,
as Shaq would call it, a G5
classification. He can say things
that other people can’t say.
I know where he stands, even
when he’s not standing with me.”
—ERIC WILLS

8 6 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 Gabriel Medina
JOHN DALY: STEPHEN MUNDAY/ALLSP ORT. GABRIEL MEDINA: ED SLOANE / WORLD SURF
LEAGUE. PETE ROSE: FOCUS ON SPORT/GET T Y IMAGES. ALL: GET T Y IMAGES.

John
Daly

But Daly isn’t going anywhere just yet. — S A M SCHUBE said. “It’s in my blood.”
— C H R I S G AY O M A L I

PETE ROSE every freaking day. And when I

managed the Reds, my goal every
night was to win the damn game.
’Cause I made a bet. I bet on
baseball. That’s not my legacy.
My legacy is I won more games
“What do I have—26 or 27 major See, I picked the wrong vice. If I’d than anybody, got more hits than
leagues records? The best record done drugs, they’d have given me anybody, scored more runs than
I have is playing in 1,972 winning a second chance. But I gambled. anybody. I was at a banquet the
games. Someone’s gonna win I was wrong, no question. I made other night and a guy asked me,
and someone’s gonna lose. a mistake. But everybody makes ‘What do you think you’d hit if
My philosophy is: Let the other mistakes. The penalty don’t fit you were playing today?’ I said,
guys lose. A lot of guys played the crime. I’ve been suspended ‘Probably .228 to .235.’ And he
hard, don’t get me wrong. But over 31 years. I’ve heard of said, ‘Wow, the pitchers are that
I played different than most guys. guys that killed somebody and good?’ I said, ‘No, I’m 80 fucking
Not three days a week, not five they’re out of jail after 20 years. years old.’ ” — P E T E R O S E , A S
days a week—I played different I’m still in jail. Thirty-one years. T O L D T O C L AY S K I P P E R

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 8 7
Asashōryū
Akinori
It took only four years for
Asashōryū Akinori—a young
Mongolian man with the agility
and fighting spirit of a prey-
hungry wolf—to rise to the top of
the deeply traditional Japanese
world of sumo wrestling. Known
for his impassioned outbursts,
his gutsy poses in the ring,
and his struggles outside of it,
Asashōryū was a far cry from the

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TOMSIC/GET T Y IMAGES SPORT CL ASSIC. OPPOSITE PAGE: SONNY BILL WILLIAMS, SANDRA MU/STRINGER; DETROIT PISTONS,
image of the yokozuna, or sumo
master, as a man of restraint
and discipline. Yet his dynamic
Jack The mere sight of Jack Lambert—as unsettling as any Bond vil-

NATHANIEL S. BUTLER /NBAE; BR AD MARCHAND, STEVE BABINEAU/NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE. ALL: GE T T Y IMAGES.
fighting style and carefree smile
drew in countless people—even lain with his toothless maw, thinning hair, and spit-flying inten-
the elders who relentlessly
criticized his impropriety came
Lambert sity—once made a Broncos rookie named John Elway wonder
whether his own true calling was to be an accountant. Terrorizer
to regard him as a natural- of quarterbacks everywhere, Lambert embraced his odious image: During a
born charmer. Twelve years Monday night game in 1974, the Steelers lineman and Ohio native announced that
have passed since his sudden he hailed from the fictional town of Buzzard’s Breath, Wyoming. After flattening
retirement, and the sport still Brian Sipe along the sideline a few years later (the first of two fine-inducing hits on
misses the sense of possibility
the Cleveland quarterback), Lambert told Howard Cosell that if they wanted better
and surprise he brought to it.
“I’ve been told to be dignified,
protection, quarterbacks should wear dresses. In retirement he guarded his privacy
to be refined,” he once said. with the same intensity that animated his Hall of Fame career: “Jack would rather
“But once I stepped into the ring, wrestle a rattlesnake than talk to a reporter,” one neighbor told a journalist who
I felt like I had to be an ogre.” came knocking. GQ left a voicemail asking Lambert if he had any comment about
— K E I G O A M E M I YA his inclusion on this list. Naturally, he did not return the call. — E R I C W I L L S

JOHN
McENROE

8 8 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
SONNYBI
LL
WILLIAMS
At the finals of the 2015 Rugby
World Cup, in London, New
Zealand’s strapping center
Sonny Bill Williams made an
audacious move. Receiving
the ball at the halfway mark,
Williams burst forward, drawing
The Bad Boys When I think of Detroit, I think of an ass whip-
pin’, at least when it comes to basketball.
five burly Aussies into his orbit.
He waited for his opponents
to close right in, and with
Detroit Pistons Michael Jordan might, too. And Motor City’s
blue-collar edge is still best personified by the
a delicate flick of his giant Pistons of the late ’80s and early ’90s, still the league’s ultimate Bad Boys. Their
wrists, offloaded the ball into lineup was a murderers’ row of hard men—Dennis Rodman, Bill Laimbeer, Isiah
the hands of his dreadlocked Thomas. But they were also winners in a town that had often lost. “For a city
teammate Ma’a Nonu, who of hardworking people that got hit real hard, we brought light to the city,” says
charged into clear air to score John Salley, a power forward who won back-to-back NBA championships with
a decisive try. It was a flashy the Pistons in 1989 and 1990. Yet Salley says he and his cohorts were also proud
play, and the teeming fans at
of being pariahs outside of Motown. “When they show you a cowboy movie,” he
Twickenham stadium thundered
in exaltation. It was also the says, “the bad guy is always the best-dressed and the one you
most sublime execution of “the remember.” —T Y L E R R . T Y N E S
offload”—a signature Sonny Bill
Williams move—which until that
moment, the rugby orthodoxy
had disparaged as showboating
and risky, akin to an Allen
Iverson behind-the-back pass. Brad Marchand separate occasions. “The guy
Today, the offload is recognized
had his face in my face, so I
as a vital component of the
just figured that would piss him
modern game, and Williams
off,” Marchand offers by way
stands vindicated. “If I hadn’t
of explanation. (Spoiler: It did!)
backed myself and pushed
He claims his pesky brand of
the boundaries, would I have
antagonism is mostly behind
achieved what I did?” asks the
him, partly because it’s hard to
All Blacks legend. “When no
get away with, thanks to all
one expects it, big plays in big
the cameras, and partly because
matches change the course of
he doesn’t need it anymore.
the game.” — C H E K U R R I E N
“It’s stuff I had to do early on to
get established and try to earn
a spot on the team and make
a name for myself, whereas now
I am established and I’ve had
a successful career,” he says on
a day he’s serving a three-game
suspension, the seventh of his
career, for intentionally swiping a
player’s legs out from underneath
him. — C L AY S K I P P E R

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 8 9
 S T E P H E N C U R RY MO HA M E D SAL AH

Liverpool’s 4-0 home win over Arsenal,

and the kids weren’t even watching the game:
Makka went off to play in the kids’ area and
Kayan sat in a high chair, throwing fruit
around and giggling joyously, while 50,000
fans sang their father’s name.
There is a popular idea that Chelsea made a
mistake in selling Salah, and that he deserved
a better chance to prove himself. (He wasn’t
the only one. Manchester City’s Kevin De
Bruyne, a strong contender for the world’s
best midfielder, is also a Chelsea reject.) This
C O N T I N U E D F RO M PAG E 4 6 C O N T I N U E D F RO M PAG E 6 6 version of events, however, misses the point:
Getting benched turned out to be the best
For Poole, the transition from specta- of abuse. But controversy is a distraction, and thing that ever happened to him. “When you
tor to participant has been surreal. Curry, so he has tried to remove that from his life too. feel that your dream is slipping away, you want
Thompson, Green, and Iguodala were all part He doesn’t go out partying, or often play video to do everything to get it,” Salah says. “I don’t
of “a world-changing dynasty,” he says—one games, instead preferring to stay at home with want to be a victim. I don’t want to be like,
that he’s now fighting to keep alive. And he’s his kids. “People really change with the fame ‘He went to Chelsea and because he is Arab
doing so by looking to Curry’s leadership. and the money, so I’m just trying not to do the or something, they didn’t give him a chance.’
“Having someone of his stature take you under same, to stay steady,” he says. This, too, is all I don’t care about that. Whatever it takes to
his wings, someone who has so much experi- deliberate, an investment in ensuring he can succeed, I will do it.”
ence on the court and so much knowledge in hit his maximum potential and stay there as Perhaps that’s why the episodes with the
life, pays huge dividends,” he says. “He opened long as possible. thief and the homeless person resonated
my eyes so much to the game of basketball. so much with people: Everyone deserves a
He does a great job of demonstrating patience do-over. There’s something comforting in the
with the team, especially the young guys.” I N L AT E N O V E M B E R , a few days after our idea that we can all unlock the potential that
Curry, for his part, dreams of a future meeting, France Football held the annual exists inside of us, even when others don’t see
five years from now where Poole is an all- Ballon d’Or awards in Paris. The black-tie it. That all that stands between us and outra-
star, Kuminga is an all-defensive player, and gala, attended by soccer’s elite players, pro- geous fortune is hard work. “People are always
Wiseman is an MVP candidate. He and Green ceeded as it always does: Messi won. Salah
will be fulfilled then, he says. placed seventh, a slight both inexplicable
But there is still the business of winning and expected. Salah spent the evening in “I want to be the best
games, of building a legacy, of conquering Monaco, where he was due to receive the player in the world.
doubters, real and invented. There are still Golden Foot, soccer’s equivalent of a star on
those who insist that Curry has ruined the the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But Liverpool
But I will have a good life
game—that he’s inspired a trend toward had a game the next day, so he left early and even if I don’t win the
outrageously long-range threes that should got on a plane home. Magy accepted the Ballon d’Or. Sometimes
only be attempted by a generational talent. award for him.
These cries might seem unique to someone He says that individual awards no longer I feel it’s just politics.”
too young to remember those who insisted motivate him. “I’m not really bothered by
that Steve Nash was ruining the game, or that that.” That doesn’t mean he isn’t still deter- happy with where they are. People have their
Allen Iverson was ruining the game before mined to become the world’s best player: routine or their comfort zone or whatever
him, and so on. The miracle in all of these He is. Spending time with Salah, it’s clear that they want to call it. They don’t like to change.
players, for me and for a lot of short, small he has reconfigured his entire life around That’s who we are as humans,” Salah says.
kids I’ve known, is that they were operating that singular goal. “If you asked me if this “People suffer for years because they don’t
in a game not entirely built for them and yet was a drive for me to be here? Yeah, of course. want to change. But for me, like: No. I needed
extracting all the magic they could from it. I can’t really lie and say honestly I didn’t to change.”
Sure, Curry is bigger now than he once was, think about it. No, I think about it. I want If that sounds like the kind of pop philos-
but he’s still a fairly small guard who has per- to be the best player in the world. But I will ophy you’ll find in any self-help book, that’s
fected his ability to not only play well, but play have a good life even if I don’t win [the Ballon because it is. But how many of us read those
with flair. To both wow and frustrate oppo- d’Or]. My life is okay, everything is fine.” He books on the secrets of success and actually
nents, as Nash and Iverson did. looks out the window of the town hall, hands follow through? Who spends nine hours on
And there are kids somewhere shooting in his pockets, shrugs. “Sometimes I feel it’s a bus, just to play soccer? Salah did. He spent
35-foot shots before even attempting to per- just politics.” those hours dreaming of this moment, and
fect the midrange, and kids pulling off drib- He still has other ambitions. “I want to now that it has arrived, he’s going to savor it
ble moves with their heads down, completely qualify for the World Cup again, I want for all it’s worth.
missing open teammates. But there’s some- to win the African Cup [of Nations],” he says. “I sacrificed everything I could just to
thing else that hovers in my mind as I exit the In January, Salah plans to lead his country out be sitting here, now,” he says. “I gave every-
arena. We’ve had Stephen Curry for a good, onto the field in 2021’s AFCON tournament thing. All my life was just for football.” He
long, thrilling time, and we’re not going to in Cameroon. Egypt is among the favorites, smiles that big smile, and the sun pours in
have him forever. Even if he plays out his lat- largely because of Salah. through the window, and maybe it’s the chan-
est extension, four seasons can come and go He wants to be a good father. Makka deliers or the golden room we’re in, but it’s
in an instant. And so, with any luck, there are and Kayan are settled in England; Makka like he’s glowing.
also some kids out there, short and scrawny, already speaks English in a Scouse accent. He needs to get to training. Even now, he
watching the blueprint Stephen Curry is Occasionally he posts pictures of them likes to be there early and last to leave. Salah
mapping out in real time: How to dominate together: kicking a ball in the yard, teaching says his goodbyes to the film crew and heads
what isn’t meant for you, until it is meant for Makka chess, the two of them dressing up as out into the street, where he climbs into the
you alone. Disney characters. “She is really competitive,” back of a plush BMW sent just for him. Several
he says, laughing. “She tells me, ‘By the way, passersby do a double-take, like, Was that—?
hanif abdurraqib is the author of I am more famous than you, because when But it’s too late, he’s already gone.
A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise we go out people want to take a picture with
of Black Performance and the recipient me.’ ” To his kids, Salah’s fame is normal, oliver franklin-wallis is a journalist
of a 2021 MacArthur Foundation grant. the baseline. I was in Salah’s box during based in England.

9 0 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2
 A L P I N E R E S C U E RS

Back at the spot they’d found the airbag, had retained enough oxygen to keep his heart
Mathys dug one foot deep…two feet…three beating for 30 minutes. Yet the carbon diox-
feet through the packed snow. Then, after ide coursing through his body was poisoning
60 seconds of digging, he looked down at the him. If Mathys hadn’t spotted the flash of his
exposed head of Joël Jaccard. airbag, Féraud estimated Jaccard would have
“I see him!” he shouted. had about “five or 10 minutes left to live.”
Jaccard lay limp and unresponsive. Gaspoz The team stowed its gear and steadied
and Jaccard’s two companions joined the res- Jaccard on the stretcher. In a flash, the heli-
cue. Shoveling methodically, the four men copter rose, found its heading, and then sped
cleared snow for another two minutes until across the Alps, reaching the hospital in Sion
they had uncovered the skier’s entire body. in 15 minutes. “It was one of the greatest res-
Lying facedown in the snow pile, legs extended, cues that we’ve ever done,” Féraud would recall
C O N T I N U E D F RO M PAG E 7 9 he was almost perfectly horizontal. He was nearly one year later, as we sat together inside
also unconscious—and he wasn’t breathing. the Maison de Sauvetage, or Rescue House, the
lucky. In January 2005, Féraud helicoptered Mathys rolled Jaccard onto his back and shook Air-Glaciers’ headquarters at Sion airport. It
to the scene of a massive avalanche in the his shoulders, attempting to wake him. Then he was also a reminder that for all the safeguards
Verbiers ski area that had swept away the began chest compressions, watching intently introduced in recent years to lower the risk of
caretaker of a ski mountain lodge. The man for any sign of response. Nothing. death by avalanche, it’s the expertise of the res-
wasn’t equipped with a DVA. A team of 120 With his face to the sky, Jaccard remained cuer—the ability to analyze a scene in the cha-
rescuers searched for three hours, probing the motionless, not breathing. But then Mathys otic aftermath of a disaster and react efficiently
debris field with their long collapsible poles. noticed something hopeful: a slight flicker under stress—that often determines whether
Meanwhile, five dogs fruitlessly sniffed at the of the eyelids. Quickly, the rescuers slid him those lost can be found in time. “More than the
snow with cold noses as darkness fell. When medicine, more than the technology, it was the
night set in, Féraud and the others had lost guide who saved him,” Féraud said.
all hope. “We were certain that he was dead,” The helicopter rose, found Joël Jaccard’s final memory from the moun-
Féraud recalled. The physician trudged to its heading, and sped tain that day was being immobile beneath the
the ski cabin to warm up after the dispiriting snow with his hands over his mouth, listening
search, when the lodge’s phone rang.
across the Alps, reaching helplessly to his friends’ frantic voices on the
A woman there picked up. “It’s for you,” she the hospital in 15 minutes. walkie-talkie. The next thing he remembered
told the doctor. “It’s the avalanche.” “It was one of the greatest was lying in a hospital corridor, pain pulsating
Féraud grabbed the phone. He heard a muf- through his back from his fractured lower ver-
fled voice. rescues that we’ve ever tebra. It took him months to get over the effects
“What are you waiting for to pick me up? done,” Feraud told me. of the accident. But eventually his spine healed
I’m freezing!” and the pain of that harrowing morning faded.
“But where are you?” Féraud asked. When I asked him what lessons he’d taken
“I’m under the avalanche! I’m cold!” onto a stretcher and contacted Maret, who from that near-death experience, he told me
“But where under the snow?” was watching nearby with the chopper ready. that his only mistake was rushing out on the
“I don’t know… It swept me away… You On command, the pilot smoothly floated his first morning of good weather and failing to
must find me. I’m very cold!” helicopter back across the avalanche field, give the accumulated snowfall a chance to set-
Féraud got on his radio. “He’s alive!” he alighting next to Jaccard’s body as it lay pros- tle. “We should have waited a couple of days.”
shouted. “He’s somewhere under our feet!” trate in the bright snow. As we spoke, the new ski season was just
Rescuers raced back to the debris field and In an instant, the rescuers lifted Jaccard beginning in the Alps—and Jaccard seemed
began listening in the dark for sounds. A res- into the aircraft. The rotors roared overhead, undaunted by last year’s brush with disaster. He
cuer dialed the buried man’s phone and told but the team was unperturbed, moving in said he was looking forward to his next off-piste
him to yell out his name, Marcus, and then to calm synchronicity. They zipped back to the run. He’d even bought a new airbag, to replace
keep shouting. Before long the elated rescue landing area, where a waiting Féraud placed the old one. He was expecting a busy winter in
team zeroed in on the muffled cries rising an oxygen mask over Jaccard’s nose and the mountains. Just like Air-Glaciers.
from the snow. They began digging furi- mouth. Gaspoz grabbed the defibrillator and
ously and soon plucked the 35-year-old out, the intubation equipment. Just then, Jaccard’s joshua hammer is a frequent contributor
amazed he’d survived. The frigid tempera- eyes opened. Féraud gasped. He’s alive. to gq who wrote last about a rash of
ture—6.8 degrees Fahrenheit—had allowed Somehow, despite running out of air three European jewel heists for the September
the powdery snow to maintain permeability, feet beneath the snow, Jaccard’s bloodstream 2021 issue.
facilitating the flow of oxygen and allowing
the man to survive for three hours buried
beneath the cold. When he emerged, he was
GQ IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT © 2022 CONDÉ NAST. ALL RIGHTS
freezing but unharmed. RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. VOLUME 92, NO. 1. GQ (ISSN 0016-6979) is published monthly (except for combined issues
in December/January and June/July) by Condé Nast, which is a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE:
Condé Nast, One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. Roger Lynch, Chief Executive Officer; Pamela Drucker Mann, Global Chief
blades of the Écureuil
T H E W H I R R I N G ROTO R Revenue Officer & President, U.S. Revenue; Jackie Marks, Chief Financial Officer. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at
drowned out Mathys. He shouted again—“The additional mailing offices. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40644503. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration
shovel!”—and gestured to his pack, strapped No. 123242885-RT0001. POSTMASTER: SEND ALL UAA TO CFS (SEE DMM 507.1.5.2); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: Send
address corrections to GQ, P.O. Box 37617, Boone, IA 50037-0717. FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS, ADDRESS CHANGES, ADJUSTMENTS,
tightly to his back. Flying snow and icy wind
OR BACK ISSUE INQUIRIES: Please write to GQ, P.O. Box 37617, Boone, IA 50037-0717, call 800-289-9330, or e-mail subscriptions@
whipped up by the helicopter stung Mathys’s gq.com. Please give both new and old addresses as printed on most recent label. First copy of new subscription will be mailed within
face. One of Jaccard’s friends grabbed the eight weeks after receipt of order. Address all editorial, business, and production correspondence to GQ Magazine, One World Trade
large-bladed tool and handed it to the guide. Center, New York, NY 10007. For reprints, please e-mail [email protected] or call Wright’s Media, 877-652-5295. For re-use
Gaspoz jumped out of the helicopter and permissions, please e-mail [email protected] or call 800-897-8666. Visit us online at www.gq.com. To subscribe to
Maret lifted the chopper up and away, maneu- other Condé Nast magazines on the World Wide Web, visit www.condenastdigital.com. Occasionally, we make our subscriber list
vering the Écureuil to a safe distance on a available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services that we believe would interest our readers. If you do not
patch of even ground 100 yards away. Féraud want to receive these offers and/or information, please advise us at P.O. Box 37617, Boone, IA 50037-0717 or call 800-289-9330.

hopped out and was preparing his equip-

GQ IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RETURN OR LOSS OF, OR FOR DAMAGE OR ANY OTHER INJURY TO, UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS,
ment—including a defibrillator and tubing UNSOLICITED ARTWORK (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TRANSPARENCIES), OR ANY
to provide endotracheal intubation. “In most OTHER UNSOLICITED MATERIALS. THOSE SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, ARTWORK, OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR
cases, he would be dead,” Féraud told me, “but CONSIDERATION SHOULD NOT SEND ORIGINALS, UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO DO SO BY GQ IN WRITING. MANUSCRIPTS,
I thought he had a chance.” PHOTOGRAPHS, AND OTHER MATERIALS SUBMITTED MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 G Q . C O M 9 1
 FINAL SHOT For our cover story on
Stephen Curry, see page 38.
Coat, $2,750, and
hoodie, $595,
by Fear of God.

ST YLIST, MOBOL A JI DAWODU.

9 2 G Q . C O M F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 P H O T O G R A P H B Y S H A N I Q W A J A R V I S