Rider Profile - Snowboarding
Name: Zoe Gillings
Hometown: Isle of Man, Great Britain
Birthdate: 14 June 1985
Sponsors:
Poker Stars, BMW, SNO!zone, British Airways
Ski Sunday presenter and former pro-boarder Ed Leigh catches up with our best hope for a medal.
You could be forgiven for thinking that boardercross, a four-person race down the mountain round tight bends and over jumps, is the easiest of all snowboard disciplines to master. Surely anyone who loves burning round a mountain can do it and if you have a shred of competitiveness you'll thrive on the thrill of having your rivals right next to you? Not quite. And comparing the UK 's best boardercross rider, Zoë Gillings, with your average speed loving snowboarder is like comparing Jensen Button with the chav doing burn-outs around Tesco's carpark last night. In a sport dominated by pioneering North Americans and central European alpine specialists, Zoë is a force to be reckoned with and, in my opinion, the 26 year old from the Isle of Man heads to Vancouver as Britain's best hope for a gold medal since Torvill and Deane took to the ice-skating rink in 1984.
I saw Zoë ride for the first time at the British Championships in Méribel in 1996; she was 10 and already very handy on the hill. Little did I know she'd only been riding for two months. "Since the age of three I spent a few weeks every winter in France, skiing at first; I switched to snowboarding aged 10. I'd got bored with skiing and my elder brother John was snowboarding so I gave it a go. I entered the British Championships a couple of months later and got hooked on the competitive element of it."
At a time when the term "professional British snowboarder" generally referred to riders able to consume their own weight in cigarettes, booze and drugs every night and then ride all day, this prodigious 10-year-old talent showed a maturity way beyond her years. Over the next eight years Zoë claimed everything that the British snowboarding trophy cabinet had to offer and was starting to narrow her focus. "When I started I did all the snowboarding events like halfpipe and giant slalom, but it was boardercross that really fascinated me. At 18 I realised I had to settle on one event and boardercross was a bit of a mixture of the other events, the one I was the best at and the one which is the most fun (in my opinion at least)."
For Zoë, this decision was confirmed a year later in 2003 when it was announced that boardercross was to become the third snowboard discipline to be represented at the Olympic Games, along with halfpipe and slalom. She began competing in a bid to secure a place for the 2006 Olympic Games in Turin, and in the process really found her stride.
"I'm very competitive so racing right against my competitors, as you do in boardercross, fits me very well. Plus I was never keen on relying on someone judging you and I like the fact that you can clearly see who's crossed the line first."
By 2005 Zoë was a fixture in the World Cup top 10 rankings for boardercross and had even parked on the podium a couple of times. Her building form was incredibly well timed and the Olympics were looming large for the humble Manx racer. Then disaster struck, ironically not on the track but during a promotional shoot, while jumping over a car for her sponsors Audi. "I cleared the car, which was no problem, but landed on an uphill slope from about 5.5m up. All my weight went through my front foot, shattering all the bones, one of them into eight pieces." Breaking a foot is one thing, shattering it is entirely different. "I got flown back to London, where they pinned and screwed it together", she says. The prognosis from the British doctor was very simple – he told Zoë it was unlikely she would be able to race again. But she took no notice, "I was determined I would do it, no matter what. I never had any doubt I'd compete again." It took seven months of physio and the bare minimum of riding to put Zoë on the start line in Turin. The fact that she qualified, and made the quarter finals on what was, up to that point at least, the most demanding track ever constructed, was a huge achievement.
Four years older and wiser, Zoë has the determination and experience to leave her mark on Vancouver. But still whenever we meet my first prying words are always, "How's the foot?", as I know the injury will never fully heal and is something that Zoë has to tolerate in order to compete. This time the answer to the question is light hearted and takes the sting out of the situation for her.
"Annoying me! But seriously, it's not too bad," she says, humble as ever. But later the queen of understatement admits the truth, "I can't run on it, walk too far or ride for more than about five days in a row. I also have to be very careful about what impact I take through it. But I have things I know work to keep pain at bay now, such as exercises to fire up the small muscles in the morning then icing it as soon as I finish riding for the day."
Having had a few injuries in my time I see this as the difference between most athletes who make it to the top and those like myself who fall by the wayside. I couldn't consider risking this much and yet Zoë sees it from the other side, unable to imagine life without racing.
Our conversation turns to preparation for Vancouver and inevitably the funding cuts by Snowsports GB , the governing body that provides financial support for UK snowsport athletes. Zoë is not a whinger and has stoically taken the cancellation of her summer training programme on the chin. With her planned five weeks on snow whittled down to four days, she found another productive way to prepare.
"I've been training over the summer, mostly in Bath at the English Institute of Sport, working on my starts. I have a Snowflex start gate there built by UK Sport [an agency that manages and distributes funding for high-performance sports] so I've been able to train for my starts off the snow which is great."
With such a rich snowboard heritage it's certain the Canadians are going to flex their muscles and ensure the 2010 Olympic boardercross course provides a suitable spectacle. Having already had a couple of runs on it, Zoë confirms this theory. "The Cypress mountain course is partly built into the ground so won't change "i never had any doubt i'd compete again" olympic special much for the Olympics. I rode it at the World Cup last season and it's well built with a few tricky features at the start, quite big jumps and a few big double jumps."
Since 2006, it has been impossible for any talk about women's boardercross not to turn to the unfortunate Lindsey Jacobellis. In the final the world's most decorated racer fell on the last jump, a country mile ahead of second place, and watched Olympic gold slip through her fingers. Zoë knows that Jacobellis has gifted them all a little less pressure come race day 2010.
"I think when it comes to the boardercross women's competition day at the Olympics that's what all the reporters will be talking about." But quick as a flash, with a big, cheeky grin, she admits, "Since only the first place rider from each qualifying round goes through, I'd rather not meet Jacobellis right away. I would like to leave that till the final."
And so to the inevitable – Zoë, can you make the podium?
"I'd like to win a medal, gold would be awesome obviously, but boardercross is so unpredictable that no one can say they know what result they are going to get." It sounds like the women's boardercross is set to be a cat fight on snow that may leave Britain basking in glory.
And that's why I think it will be one of the most watched events of Vancouver 2010.
Daily Mail Ski & Snowboard Magazine
