Zoe Gillings, Britain’s No 1 Olympic snow sports athlete, put in two excellent performances in Gressoney, Italy, this weekend at the Italian SBX Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS) snowboard cross races, clinching two back to back victories on consecutive days.
The result follows a troubled season for the 25-year-old, both financially and with injuries, and she is still recovering from an injury sustained at the Olympics back in February which has resulted in minimal on snow training time in the last 12 months.
Zoe made an impressive start to Saturday’s competition, qualifying in 1st place with over half a second on her closest rival. She then went on to dominate the heats putting in some strong technical racing and beating her opponents convincingly to take gold.
Sunday’s competition saw her full of confidence from the previous day where she again put down the fastest qualification time but faced stiffer competition in the heats being passed into second place at the first corner of the final heat.
After fighting back she managed to break into 1st place where she remained for the rest of the race.
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Related reports:
Skeleton World Championships: Rudman finishes fourth
Bobsleigh: 4th place World Champs finish for Team GB
Skeleton: Amy Williams omitted from Team GB World Champs squad
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The FIS competition is a lower level of competition to the World Cup but still saw 28 athletes on day one and 19 athletes on day two competing from nations across Europe.
Speaking after the race, Zoe said: “It’s about three weeks until the next World Cup and I came here to get some much needed training in.
“I didn’t expect to win as it’s been a really tough season but everything just fell into place and I won both competitions. I’m absolutely over the moon.”
Zoe’s other recent highlights have included placing 8th at the Winter Olympics, 3rd at the French FIS race in Puy St Vincent and 7th at the World Championships in Spain, yet due to the politics involved in British sport Zoe’s entire funding is ending at the end of March.
Speaking of her funding situation, she commented: “It’s really disappointing that my funding is being ended, especially when my results at the Olympics and World Championships easily meet the criteria set by the government for World Class funding.
“I’ve been told all my life that if I reach the top level in my sport I would receive funding but now that I have, the funding still isn’t there due to the politics at the top level which I simply cannot control. What motivation to succeed does this provide to young British athletes?”
She continued: “It’s taken a while but I’ve realised I can’t rely on anyone else, I’m now doing this myself with the close and overwhelming support of my three principle sponsors BMW, IOM Sport Aid and Pokerstars.
“I am working very hard on setting up in business and have already launched my first, an e-commerce based electronics website – www.zgelectronics.com. The next business in a totally different field will be launched in the Isle of Man in the second week in May followed by another business in the UK four weeks later. It’s all go but I’m loving the challenge. Nothing is going to stop me becoming World No 1 again.”
Jessica Whittington, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine
