Zoe Atkin says fear is what drives her on to be a better freestyle skier

Posted by author January 23, 2025 Sports

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.

“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.”

Gold at X Games in 2023 reignited Atkin’s passion for her sport. That same year, she claimed world halfpipe silver, then last year stood on the X Games podium for a second time after securing second place.

X Games competition is expanding next year with the introduction of X Games League, which will debut with a minimum of four cross-disciplinary teams competing in four global events.

Athletes for both the summer and winter editions will be selected via an industry-wide draft, and will receive base compensation with the additional incentive of prize money.

And in March, 13-time X Games and three-time Olympic champion snowboarder Shaun White will premiere his own event, Snow League, with NBA superstar Kevin Durant among his backers.

Atkins admits she’s still in the dark about many aspects of the new X Games League, but thinks “it’s cool. It’s going to be exciting, and I’m excited to see where it goes in our sport and how it pushes it. I think it’s just an exciting time for skiing.”

Atkin could immediately relate when she watched Simone Biles Rising – the documentary about the most decorated gymnast in Olympic history – on Netflix.

Biles took a two-year long mental health break following the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where she withdrew – later explaining she had “the twisties”, a mental block that can cause gymnasts to lose their sense of position in the air.

Atkin, who works with a sports psychologist, has in the process of falling back in love with her sport also realised it is not the only thing that brings her joy —and with just over a year to go until the Milano-Cortina Olympics, she is finally looking forward to another Games.

Atkin added: “I have a general sense of, ‘this isn’t everything. This one event isn’t everything. I have other things going on.

“At the end of the day, you could be the best and not be happy, and is that really worth it?

“I want to go in to the season, and hopefully the Olympics, I just want to enjoy the experience.”