Zoe Atkin says fear is what drives her on to be a better freestyle skier
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British-American freestyle skier Zoe Atkin admits flinging herself into the air off of a 22-foot ice wall is just as scary as it sounds. The 22-year-old has reformulated how she approaches both halfpipe and mental health since a disappointing debut at the Beijing Olympics, a recalibration that has paid off on the podium.
On Friday, Atkin – the 2024 Winter X Games ski superpipe silver medallist – will look to reclaim the gold she won in 2023. “What I do is a dangerous activity. For people it’s like, ‘what are you doing?’ It makes sense that I’m afraid,” she told the PA news agency.
“But I think it’s all very natural. It makes sense as a response. I’m trying to reframe it, like, being afraid is a good thing. It makes your body prepared to do what you need to do. “If you’re not nervous to do a trick 12 feet out of a half-pipe, then something’s wrong with you. You need that fear to be able to perform at your top level.”.
Atkin represented Great Britain in women’s freeski halfpipe in Beijing, where she fell twice in the final but pushed on for a ninth-placed finish in her Olympic debut. She said: “I put a lot of pressure on myself, I had a lot of expectations that I had for myself that I said I wanted to achieve, and it all compounded into just feeling really bad.”.
Though she was “grateful and honoured to be there in the first place”, the result left her feeling depressed, and “honestly unsure if I was going to continue skiing.”. Atkin started university at Stamford and decided to give herself “one more season, and then if I really don’t want to do this, I’ll stop.”.
