Inside the daredevil world of ski halfpipe with Zoe Atkin: ‘It’s a risky thing. But I train for this’
Team GB’s world champion will face off against China’s Eileen Gu for gold in Milano Cortina having conquered her fear of flying high above a 22-foot wall of ice
TL;DR
- Zoe Atkin is a Team GB freestyle skier aiming for Olympic gold.
- She studies symbolic systems at Stanford University, focusing on psychology and how the brain conquers fear.
- Atkin acknowledges feeling fear in her sport but uses sports psychology to manage it.
- She became world champion with a signature trick, an alley-oop flat 540 mute, after overcoming a significant mental block.
- Her approach to learning new tricks is calculated and meticulous, involving gradual progression.
- Atkin also emphasizes the importance of cultivating an identity outside of sport for performance.
- She won the X-Games last month, reinforcing her status as a favorite for the upcoming Olympics.
- Her elder sister, Izzy, is a role model who won a bronze medal in slopestyle skiing at the Pyeongchang Olympics.