World champion Zoe Atkin of Team GB is set to compete for gold in ski halfpipe at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina. The 23-year-old Stanford student has overcome personal fears in the high-risk sport, drawing on her studies in psychology and probability. She faces strong competition from China's Eileen Gu while aiming to emulate her sister Izzy's Olympic success.
Zoe Atkin, a 23-year-old freestyle skier representing Team GB, is focusing on her preparation for the ski halfpipe event at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina. The sport involves skiing down a 22-foot wall of ice, performing twists and spins up to 15 feet in the air, and repeating the maneuvers five more times. Atkin acknowledges the risks: "What we do is pretty risky," she told Sean Ingle of The Guardian. "When a regular person watches, they’re like, ‘Oh my god, these guys are crazy. What are they doing?’"
Atkin has worked extensively to manage her fear, a challenge she studies as part of her degree in symbolic systems at Stanford University, which combines psychology, probability, and mathematics. "Being able to learn about fear as a biological process has really helped me," she said. "I know my heart racing like this is just a feeling and I can be bigger than this." She consults a sports psychologist and reminds herself: "This is just a feeling, you don’t have to buy into it. You’re going to be scared. You should be scared. This is a scary thing. It’s a risky thing. But I train for this and I’m ready."
Her breakthrough came last year when she won the world championships with her signature trick, an alley-oop flat 540 mute. This maneuver requires spinning 540 degrees, grabbing one ski, and landing after flying 15 feet high. Atkin developed it first on an airbag before progressing to snow, overcoming a two-year mental block through persistent practice despite repeated falls. At the championships, she fell on her first run but landed it in the second to secure victory. "It was just such a good full circle, to overcome this hurdle I’ve been thinking about for years," she reflected.
Atkin's Olympic history includes a ninth-place finish in Beijing four years ago, marred by Covid restrictions like daily tests and isolated meals. The result was "absolutely devastating," but building an identity beyond sport has strengthened her resilience. Last month, she won gold at the X-Games, solidifying her status as a favorite alongside Eileen Gu. Atkin credits competitors for pushing her: "It’s tough going up against such an amazing competitor, but the girls I’m competing against force me to be better. I’m definitely excited and feeling pretty good."
A potential podium finish would follow her elder sister Izzy Atkin, who earned Britain's first Winter Olympics skiing medal with bronze in women's slopestyle at Pyeongchang eight years ago. "She’s always been a very big role model for me," Zoe said. "I got into skiing because of her."
