She’s in Vancouver. She’s 5th in the world and she’s ready to rumble. Her website with videos of her at the Olympic is here.
Zoe will be competing at the Winter Olympics, Vancouver in Snowboardcross on the 16th February 2010. The womens Snowboardcross will start at approximately 6pm UK time. (That’s 1pm EST)
Back story: Zoe Gillings can hardly walk. Even wearing shoes is painful for Britain’s best snowboarder. For the 24-year-old, ranked fifth in the world and hoping to win a medal in the snowcross final on Tuesday, it is a worrying state of affairs – but one that she is well used to.
Five years ago Gillings shattered eight bones in her left foot while attempting to perform a stunt for an Audi advert. An x-ray showed her cuboid bone – vital for stability – was a mess. “It looked like cornflakes,” Gillings says, matter‑of‑factly.
Her surgeon pronounced her career over, but Gillings refused to bow to expert opinion. “He probably thought I was very naive, but there was no way I was giving up.” The following year she qualified for the Turin Winter Olympics, despite having had her foot in a series of protective casts for four months, and finished 15th. The rest of this fascinating story is here at the Observer. And she has a Winter Olympics Diary on the Daily Telegraph here.
