Replying to How many skiers are out there who could compete at X-Games level but choose not to?

I'm kind of new in following park skiing and competition, and I see some edits here of people who are really throwing down and going hard jumps/rails and that just ooze style, but I haven't heard of their names before or seen them in the xgames/dew tour/ext lineup. So is there just a big gap in skill that I can't see because I'm new to this, or do only some people try to go the competition route?