Nicola Thost From me to you
Nicola Thost’s name is synonymous with firsts. Now the German snowboarder and first Olympic Champ is inspiring kids to make it on their own.
More like this...
Every kid needs a hero. And for me that person was Nicola Thost. She was exactly the kind of snowboarder I longed to be, and we had just enough in common to make even the craziest pipedream feel within reach. She was German; I was German. She was a girl; I was a girl. But the style and skill she brought to the table – the way she bolted out the pipe with an aggressive precision that could rival any guy – simply blew my mind.
Not only was Nicola crowned the first-ever Olympic champ during snowboarding’s debut at the 1998 Winter Games in Japan, but she went on to become the first European to win the prestigious US Open later that year – a feat she repeated in ’99 – and was also the first female rider to land back-to-back 720s in contest.
Now, through her new youth project, Sprungbrett (Springboard), she’s placing the gauntlet into even younger hands and helping more kids believe the pro dream is within reach.
In 1999, you were the first woman to ever make the cover of Onboard magazine. What drove you to reach such heights?
Back then there weren't a lot of girls snowboarding so I looked to the boys for inspiration. I thought, ‘If they can do this, I can do it too.’ This ambition to prove something to myself was always part of my character. I was into gymnastics when I was fourteen… it’s a brutal sport and I would cry at least once a week. You don’t get anywhere without discipline [in gymnastics] and it was the same for snowboarding.
Last season, you started the Sprungbrett (Springboard) project to foster new talent. But doesn’t a training programme contradict your philosophy that groms should make it to the top off their own back?
No, because the sport has changed in the last decade. Today, snowboarding is a mix of extreme sports and acrobatics and you have to prepare your body for this. […] I want to support kids between seven and fifteen in a different way than the competition circus, associations and sponsors do. With my project, they get to understand the different aspects of snowboarding on their way to turning pro… The kids will be joined by experienced pros, photographers and filmers, all of whom will [teach] them the basics of career management. […] The most promising talents will get wildcards to bigger events like the Red Bull UpSprings and thus take the next step on their way to becoming a snowboard pro.
Do you realise how much of a pioneer you were back then for girls entering this male-dominated world?
For me, it started with a little girl standing at the pipe in Ischgl during the first Snowboard World Championships in 1996 and asking her brother, ‘Oli, do you think I can do what they are doing?’ Looking back, I’m really proud of this girl who always followed her dreams. Do I feel like a pioneer? I think I’m lacking the objectiveness to say so. To me, people like Nicole Angelrath, Terje [Haakonsen] or Jamie Lynn were the pioneers and after my retirement at the US Open in 2002, I knew that Kelly Clark would continue to push women's snowboarding just like I did for a few years. Passing on the sceptre from one generation to the next – that’s how it works.
Check out the full feature in HUCK#025, out now.
Subscribe to HUCK for six issues
Only £21 (UK) / £44 (EU) / £59 (Rest of the World).
Nicola Thost (text) by Melanie Schönthier is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Add Your Comment...
Please note: Your comment may be held in moderation for approval by an administrator to prevent spamming. This usually doesn't take long, please be patient.