Interviewer: Snowboarding.com Interview Location: Interview Date: 2010-04-01 What year did your start riding?: What do you do in the offseason?: Surfing, MTB, golf, yoga, traveling, apparel design Who are your favorite riding buddies: What do you like most about snowboarding? There isn’t a best part because it’s all good, but I love the feeling of landing a new trick for the first time. It’s the scariest feeling in the world not knowing what’s about to happen, but you push on, commit and land. It’s one of the most satisfying Who do you admire? My Mom, because she lives a balanced life with style and grace. She does it all smoothly and easily and then has more than enough time for the things that matter most. Where have you traveled lately? I had never been to Russia before so that trip was the most memorable as far as experiencing a culture and country I had never seen before; we rode new terrain, ate different foods, drank vodka and went to the banya and got hit with steaming hot palms! Bu Have you done well in any contest lately? Encouraging words for beginners? What are you plans for this season? (i.e. events, travel, videos, etc.) Last year a lot of my season was dedicated to traveling and filming for Oakley’s all girl snow, skate, surf film called Uniquely. That movie took me around the world (literally) riding in Japan for three weeks and then straight to Russia for two. This year I’m really looking forward to pushing myself even more in the backcountry but hopefully sticking to one or two places. When you travel so much it’s really hard to get better because you constantly need to adapt to your new environment before you can even get back to where you were the place you were last. This year I also felt like I was just learning and wasn’t able to ride to my full potential. I felt like I was building…..building experience, building confidence. So I’m really excited to have a good balance this year between contests (this is the year the US has to earn quota spots for the Olympics through the FIS World Cups) and shooting photos and riding in the backcountry and hopefully reaching my full potential. What do you think of you results for this event? What is your strategy for the finals?
Career Highlights:
2010 Gold Winter X Games halfpipe
2009: 2nd Snow Angels Invitational, 3rd Grand Prix Boreal, CA, 2nd Grand Prix Killington, VT, 3rd World Cup
2008 ESPY Award Best Action Sports Female, 1st X Games Superpipe, 1st Snow Angles Invitational, 1st Grand Prix Breckenridge, 1st Action Sports Female on the Cover of ESPN Magazine
2007 1st Breckenridge Grand Prix, 1st Abominable Snow Jam,1st Grand Prix Tamarack, 2nd Grand Prix Mt. Bachelor
, 3rd Mount Baker Banked Slalom, 2nd X Games Superpipe, 2nd US Open Halfpipe
2006 Olympic Silver Medalist Torino, Italy, 1st FIS World Cup Saas Fe, Switzerland
, Overall Grand Prix Champion; won four of the five Grand Prix events determining Olympic team
2005 1st X Games Halfpipe, 1st Gravity Games Halfpipe, 1st US Open Halfpipe
Fresh Adventure Internship of a Lifetime
The search is on to hire two candidates to participate in the Old Spice Fresh Adventure Internship to celebrate the brand’s first line of destination-based anti-perspirant/deodorant. The Fresh Collection gives guys the chance to smell like some of the freshest places on earth: Fiji, Matterhorn, Cyprus and Denali. As part of their job requirement, the interns will be reporting on their scent-inspired adventures in Matterhorn and Fiji, via social media channels. Each intern will also be outfitted with $5,000 and an itinerary of “jobs” to complete and document while on location.
To help better prepare the interns for their adventure, Old Spice is teaming up with two world-class athletes: professional snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler and professional surfer Anastasia Ashley, who are coming on-board as internship mentors. For more information, visit www.oldspiceadventure.com.
“I am excited to be working with Old Spice on the Fresh Collection Internship Search,” said Gretchen Bleiler, professional snowboarder. “It’s not often that someone gets a chance to go to Matterhorn or Fiji as part of an internship, let alone get paid to snowboard all day and rock some lederhosen!”
