Snowboarding
3 reasons why Zoi Sadowski-Synnott has risen to become snowboarding royalty
What were the three key factors behind Kiwi Zoi Sadowski-Synnott catapulting herself into snowboarding's freestyle elite with a bronze in Pyeongchang? Find out here.
There’s no doubt that women’s snowboarding has seen a huge burst of progression in the past few years: 720s and single flips have rapidly been replaced by 900s and double flips as the must-have tricks in the Big Air scene, and there’s a wealth of talented females coming up today who've got Anna Gasser’s crown firmly in their sights.
Take rookie New Zealander talent Zoi Sadowski-Synnott: she’s still only 17 and relatively unknown in the world of Slopestyle and Big Air, but she’s already got a couple of massively progressive moves in her freestyle bag of tricks: namely double Wildcats and Switch Backside 900s.
So what does it take to be just 17 and a total Slopestyle boss? Let’s look at Zoi’s case history and find the three key factors.
1. She started young
Zoi learned to ski at the age of four, and switched to snowboarding at the age of nine. She was hooked immediately, and thanks to having a dad and older brothers who were all into it, Zoi had all the support and inspiration she needed to progress – fast. So fast, in fact, that by the age of 16 Zoi had won her first Slopestyle World Cup contest – the youngest ever in this discipline.
See Zoi Sadowski-Synnott's best action shots:
Dub Wildcat
© Graeme Murray
Stomping a Double Wildcat
© Miles Holden
Zoi Sadowski-Synnott front one off wall
© Graeme Murray
Cab one onto down bar
© Graeme Murray
2. She was in the right place
Zoi is from Wanaka and New Zealand’s winter sports capital city is surrounded by ski resorts and world-class facilities, like the Superpipe in Cardrona. Add annual trips to Whistler, BC from an early age (Zoi’s earliest snow memory is sledging there, aged four), and we’re looking at a girl who’s been exposed to back-to-back Northern and Southern hemisphere winters – no wonder she’s got the skills of riders twice her age.
Dub Wildcat perfectly performed
© Graeme Murray
3. She's also a skater
A quick look through Zoi’s Instagram feed shows you that she’s just as hooked on skateboarding, and that’s got to be a good thing for her snowboarding. Trampolines might be the best training method for learning flips and air awareness (Zoi’s also a badass on the tramp), but there’s nothing like ripping around a bowl all summer to develop your style and overall board control on snow.
