At only 16, snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott is the youngest female winner of a world cup snowboarding competition.
The Mount Aspiring College pupil won a world cup slopestyle competition in the Czech Republic in March and hopes to repeat her winning performance on her home mountain this weekend.
Sadowski-Synnott will line up alongside some of the best female snowboarders in the world, including fellow New Zealander and 2014 Olympian Christy Prior, at the Winter Games slopestyle world cup event at the Cardrona Alpine Resort on Sunday .
With the competition at Cardrona — her home mountain — Sadowski-Synnott thinks she might have an advantage over the rest of the field.
"I think it is definitely an advantage to be here at Cardrona, for me anyway, because I’ve hit these same jumps before and that comes into it a lot."
If she performs well this weekend, she will go a long way to proving to the New Zealand Olympic selectors she is worthy of a spot at the Winter Olympics in five months.
"I just want to put down a good run and go through my routine so I can build."
With youth on her side, Sadowski-Synnott wants to use this Olympic cycle as a experience-builder with an eye to being on the podium at the 2022 Winter Olympics in China.
Being one of the best snowboarders in the world does not mean Sadowski-Synnott gets to ditch her school work — although she does admit having missed school once or twice to hit the slopes.
"I used to miss school quite a bit because I was snowboarding all the time, but the school is really good about it and they understand how important snowboarding is to me.
"Snowboarding is half my life and the other half is school work."
For inspiration, the young Olympic hopeful does not have to look much further than fellow New Zealander Prior, also a world cup gold medal winner, who has her sights set on the Winter OlympicsAfter 10 months off the snow recovering from knee surgery, the Winter Games will be Prior’s first serious competition for more than a year.
"This is my first comp back and it’s more like getting back into it. I haven’t been back on my board too long, so it’s a confidence-builder leading up into the northern hemisphere season."
Prior reached the semifinals of the slopestyle competition in Sochi but had to pull out because of injury.
"The Winter Games are definitely a build-up for the next five months and if I perform well here it lets me know my body and head are in the right space for the rest of the season."
The New Zealand Olympic Committee hopes to have the New Zealand Winter Olympics team selected before the end of the year, but the final cut-off day for selection is January 24, just two weeks before the Games start.
• Foggy conditions at the Cardrona Alpine Resort yesterday meant both the men’s and women’s freeski world cup halfpipe qualifying rounds were postponed until today.
