Snowboarding: Zoi Sadowski-Synnott’s trick that nobody can match

A new trick to start the new season produced the same sparkling result for Zoi Sadowski-Synnott.

In her first major event since last year’s Winter Olympics, the Kiwi snowboarder claimed silver at the Big Air World Cup in Austria yesterday.

Sadowski-Synnott finished behind local favourite Anna Gasser and ahead of Japan’s Kokomo Murase, the trio earning the same podium places as in Beijing 11 months ago.

But there was one major difference to begin competition in 2023, an addition providing Sadowski-Synnott a significant boon ahead of prestigious events to come this month.

The 21-year-old spent the New Zealand winter deepening her bag of tricks at Cardrona and immediately pulled out a manoeuvre no competitor can match, showing off a new switch backside 1260 with a weddle grab.

It was needed. Sadowski-Synnott had crashed while trying the jump on her first run in the final and, with two scores required from three attempts, was under pressure as she awaited her next chance to drop in.

But as she showed in Beijing, those situations are where Sadowski-Synnott thrives, soon landing the recently developed jump to collect a competition-high score of 97.50.

A backside 1080 in her third run reaped a combined total of 176.50, edged by Gasser’s 179.75 in a level of competition the Kiwi said was higher than the Olympics, and the new trick portends more podiums to come.

“I was definitely feeling the pressure going into my second run, but I feel like I’m one of those riders who needs the pressure to perform,” Sadowski-Synnott told Newstalk ZB. “I was in a position where I knew what I needed to do.

“That was probably one of the highest scores I’ve ever gotten. I’m the only one who can do that trick and it’s the first time I’ve put it down in competition. I definitely could’ve done it better but getting a 97.5 is pretty huge.

“I was stoked to get two scores on the board in my first event back, and ending up second was like a bit of deja vu from the Olympics.”

That silver medal in Beijing came a week after Sadowski-Synnott had triumphed in the slopestyle to become the first New Zealander to win gold at the Winter Olympics.

Her next chance for another satisfying spell of deja vu will come at this weekend’s Slopestyle World Cup in Switzerland, where Sadowski-Synnott may attempt the new 1260 in a more challenging discipline.

“I had a couple of days before the event in training and just lacing it was super sick,” she said. “Doing that in big air means hopefully one day I can put it down in slopestyle, which is a huge thing.

“You kind of put more pressure on slopestyle because it has a bit more prestige and it just means a whole lot more when you do better. I feel like you use big air to prepare for slopestyle, but at the same time I’m so stoked on this result.”

The result certainly augured well for the X Games at the end of the month in Aspen, which Sadowski-Synnott called the biggest event of the season.

It makes for a busy start to the new year after a glittering 2022 saw her Olympic success followed by winning the Lonsdale Cup — the NZOC’s top award — and receiving a place on the New Year Honours list. But as she honed her unrivalled abilities on the slopes of Cardrona, that’s exactly what the snowboard sensation had been desiring.

“The last 12 months have been absolutely incredible and I’m so stoked with how I’m riding,” Sadowski-Synnott said. “But there comes a point when you have to put it all behind you and focus on what’s coming up next.”