Sibling rivalry fuels Zoe Atkin’s bid for Winter Olympics gold eight years after sister’s bronze

Four years on from a frustrating debut Winter Olympics, and nearly two weeks from the start of Milano-Cortina, Britain’s Zoe Atkin arrives in Livigno as the hot favourite.

The 23-year-old was the top qualifier in the freeski halfpipe, with longtime rival and defending champion Eileen Gu of China down in fifth.

Atkin finished ninth in Beijing but is a very different prospect now: the Stanford student is reigning world champion and the X Games gold medallist, claiming the title only a couple of weeks before the Olympics began.

She is expecting a very different experience to the 2022 Games, held under the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic when she was just 19.

In fact she very nearly didn’t reach the Games at all, missing her flight from the US to Beijing because her compulsory Covid test didn’t arrive in time. She recalls: “The flight left and the Covid test ended up arriving like 20 minutes later. It was just a lot of hecticness surrounding the Games, and obviously it was my first Games as well.

“I didn’t know what to expect and I was very young. It had definitely a crazy kind of, finally getting to the Games after four years of thinking about it. I had a lot of pressure on myself, a lot of expectations, and definitely didn’t perform the way I wanted to. Which obviously any other event, it’s kind of like, oh, well, I’ll get the next event. But with the Olympics it’s only once every four years. So it’s a little bit of a tough pill to swallow.

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“But I think that in the past couple years I’ve been able to find that love again for skiing and find a more process-oriented mindset towards it, rather than only thinking about the results, which I think helps a lot with training and competing. And I think going into this Games, I’ve been a lot more established and confident.”

So far this has been a mixed Olympics for Team GB: a haul of three gold medals so far has smashed the previous record of just one at a single Games, but several athletes have narrowly missed out, with five fourth places, including narrow defeats for Atkin’s snowsport teammates Kirsty Muir and Mia Brookes.

Atkin, and the men’s curling squad, who are guaranteed at least silver, represent two more strong medal hopefuls - and Atkin has an additional personal motivation pushing her on.

Her older sister Izzy won freeski slopestyle bronze in Pyeongchang 2018, Britain’s first-ever Olympic medal on skis, and Atkin is determined to match - or preferably better - her sister’s achievement.

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She says: “Definitely, we have a little bit of a sibling rivalry going on. She was a really big role model for me growing up. There is also that competitiveness. I feel like every time I win a medal that’s better than the medal that she won, I’m like, ‘Haha, I beat you’!

“It’s kind of the running joke that she has the Olympic medal and I don’t. She’s obviously one of my biggest supporters and she helps me with so much, just with the wisdom that she has in competition and everything. But yeah, I’m hoping to kind of tie that with her after these Games. We’ll see.”

Izzy’s medal now sits on a trophy shelf in guest room in the family home, with the 27-year-old having moved out. Atkin adds: “When guests come in they see it hanging up. They are like, what? That is quite cool.”

“My sister is a really big reason why I got into the sport and I watched her win that Olympic medal in 2018. That was really inspiring to me and that was kind of a moment where I was seeing what she was capable of. Seeing that made me believe in myself a little bit more.

“I think that I’ve always put the Olympics on that kind of pedestal. It would really mean a lot to me to have an Olympic medal. It’s always been such a big dream for me. Obviously at the end of the day, I just have to focus on the skiing because I have to land the run to get the result. That’s kind of what I’m placing my focus on at the Games, but I would absolutely love it if I could win a medal.”