By Emily G Roe
PARIS (Reuters) – Having won an Olympic gold medal in Pyeongchang four years ago, Austrian snowboarder Anna Gasser is looking forward to a more enjoyable experience at the Beijing Games.
The 30-year-old, who took gold in the Big Air competition in 2018, is heading for her third straight Olympics in a relaxed frame of mind.
“I feel less pressure this time because I already have this gold medal at home and right now women’s snowboarding is at such a good place there is so much progression going on,” she told Reuters as she prepared for her flight to China.
“I feel like if I want to repeat winning or if I just want to get home with a medal I need to perform my best and I’m just going to try and enjoy the whole experience cos last time I was so stressed, I really was so focused on winning the gold.
“But now that I already have it I feel like I can enjoy the Olympics experience a little bit more,” Gasser added.
Gasser said she had no worries about COVID-19 in the “closed loop” at Beijing 2022, despite the high number of infections in Europe in recent weeks due to the Omicron variant.
“I feel like once I’m there I’m gonna feel pretty safe because it’s been so strict to get there,” she said.
“I hope we still will be able to see some friends, actually freestyle snowboarding is pretty international and it would be sad if we couldn’t snowboard together and if I couldn’t see my international friends.”
The Olympic champion revealed that the period leading up to her departure was the most stressful.
“I feel like now we are at the airport and now its getting real and I’m happy I made it here, I was pretty nervous last week with the covid tests and the whole protocols but I feel like I see the finish line,” she said.
“We’re almost there and I feel like when I’m in the Olympic village, that’s when I’m gonna concentrate more on the sports than getting there.”
The Olympic snowboarding competitions get underway on Saturday with the qualifying rounds for the women’s slopestyle event.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor, editing by Ed Osmond)
