Ryan Wedding, the former Olympian who was arrested Thursday after allegedly running a multi-billion dollar drug empire, was going to be the next big thing in Canadian snowboarding before he descended into a life of crime, says a former acquaintance. In an interview Friday following, Ross Rebagliati, who won a gold medal in the men’s giant slalom snowboarding event at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, said he met Wedding as he was just starting his own snowboarding career. “I was about 10 years older than him, and at the end of my career, and Ryan was just 18 or 19, and he was like 6’3. You know, he looked like Superman. He was going to be the next, and pretty much was, the next best guy on tour that we had seen,” Rebagliati said. Rebagliati recalled Wedding having “good family” support when he knew him, remembering his mother and father attended all his races. Wedding competed in the men’s parallel giant slalom at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and placed 24th. The disappointing result played at least a small part in shaping Wedding’s future, according to Rebagliati, who emphasized Canadian athletes at that time were hurting for funding. “When he didn’t perform, you know, at the top of his game in Salt Lake City, then he probably was thinking like, ‘What’s the next thing that I can do to earn an income?’” Wedding was listed among the FBI’s Top 10 most wanted prior to his arrest in Mexico City this week. He’s accused of orchestrating at least five murders, including four in Ontario and the killing of a federal witness in Colombia.
