How Izzy and Zoe Atkin are plotting world domination
Teenager Zoe tells Pippa Field how she intends to join her older sister Izzy in Team GB in Beijing
Living in the shadow of a history-making older sibling could be a heavy burden for many. Not so freestyle skier Zoe Atkin, who is wasting no time in trying to reach the same heights as sister Izzy. It was in February last year that the elder Atkin, then aged 19, belied her position as the youngest member of the Team GB squad to seize Olympic slopestyle bronze, becoming the first Briton to win an Olympic skiing medal.
And yet come the next Winter Games in Beijing 2022, the possibilities for even more family milestones are plentiful, especially with younger sister Zoe now also stamping her authority all over the mountains.
This month, the 16-year-old, in just her third World Cup event and 12 months on from finishing 14th on debut in the same competition, won halfpipe gold at Copper Mountain in Colorado – just the second time a Briton had won a World Cup halfpipe event since Rowan Cheshire in 2014.
The next few months may be all about the build up to the summer Olympic Games in Tokyo but British momentum is very much building on the white stuff, too.
“I was really excited about it. It was hard to believe, it’s crazy that I got all this attention for it,” says Americanborn Atkin about victory in an event whereby skiers aim to post the highest score performing tricks down a halfpipe of snow.
“Honestly, I had never really thought about trying for the win. My main goals for the season were just to consistently qualify for finals and maybe get a podium result. But I never focused on that, I focus on training.
“I had been working on those tricks in the summer. I had just been in Austria for a ski training camp. My goal was just to go as high as I could and get as many grabs as I could.”
The year had already been one of progress, with a 13th-place finish at her senior World Championships debut in February followed by fifth at her second World Cup a month later.
The Copper Mountain victory celebrations centred mainly around dinner with friends and family, including mother Winnie and father Michael, but not before a phone call to her older sister. “She was screaming over the phone with some of her friends,” recounts Atkin. In fact, Izzy was already well aware of how the newly crowned winner had been getting on, courtesy of regular video updates sent by their father. Unfortunately, Winnie had no such tasks to distract herself with and ease her usual nerves.
“I still haven’t quite gotten used to the fact of not being nervous watching both Zoe and Izzy,” she admits. “I’ve been watching them for years and I still am nervous.”
For the sake of Winnie’s health, you only hope she is able to finally find a way to get a grip of her nerves come 2022. By that time the sisters will, injury permitting, be heading into the Olympics as a hot tip to become the first British siblings to win medals at a Winter Games.
Zoe will now gradually step up World Cup appearances after previously mainly competing on the Rev Tour – a development pathway circuit in America for athletes between the ages of 14 and 19. She will not only have finished balancing schoolwork with ski commitments but she will have another two years’ experience under her belt.
Her focus will be on the halfpipe, whereas Izzy will be aiming to build on her slopestyle bronze and succeed in the ski big-air discipline which makes it debut in Beijing. The omens are good, too, with the now 21-yearold, who finished third at this year’s World Championships, taking her first World Cup big-air medal with a bronze a week ago in Atlanta.
Home for the sisters is the United States, where they have both benefited from attending Utah’s Park City Winter Sports High School, which has an academic year that runs from April to November to allow students four months on the slopes.
They qualify for the British team through their father, who was born in County Durham and grew up in Birmingham, while it was Pat Sharples, the GB park and pipe head coach, upon spotting her dual-heritage passport, who journeyed to Colorado in 2014 and first persuaded Izzy to join. It proved to be a handy case of two for the price of one when Zoe followed suit.
“I really like the British team, it’s a small team but they’re really supportive of the halfpipe programme and we have a lot of fun,” says Zoe, whose mother is Malaysian.
“I was there watching Izzy compete in Pyeongchang and seeing her do well definitely inspires me. It would be really cool to compete in Beijing with her.”
‘Seeing Izzy do well has inspired me. It would be really cool to compete in Beijing with her’