Isle of Man's Zoe Gillings re-affirmed herself as Britain's No1 Olympic snow sports athlete and one of the best snowboard cross athletes in the World today when she finished on the podium in 3rd place at the World Cup Snowboard cross finals in Arosa, Switzerland after three hugely impressive performances on Thursday.
The competition took on a new format with six competitors in each race instead of the traditional fourThe 25-year-old British number one said: "I've had an amazing day and to keep it going all the way to the final is just brilliant." The event was won by Alexandra Jekova with Callan Chythlook-Sifsof second.
Zoe progressed through the qualifiers yesterday and first race today into heat no two today where she was up against World No 1 Lindsey Jacobellis and Olympic silver medallist Deborah Antonioz to name a few. Zoe came out of the gate in second place where she remained for the race effectively knocking out both Jacobellis and Anthonioz from the competition. Zoe then went into the final race where she finished on the podium in 3rd position.
Zoe has had a turbulent 24 months due primarily to funding but also injury as she has spent only a handful of days actually training on snow. If that wasn't bad enough, the UK Sport podium funding Zoe has received for the past 4 years - albeit intermittently, is officially finishing in 7 days time where Zoe will receive £0 in support from them.
Zoe commented after the race, "This season I only received my funding in February 2011 (5 months late), I've done virtually no training at all in the last 12 months yet out of the 3 World Cup competitions I've been able to enter this season, I finished 7th at the World Championships in Spain and today on the podium in 3rd place in Switzerland. I withdrew from the WC heats last week before the race had started following an injury in
training." Zoe also recorded two wins at the Federation International de Ski (FIS) Snowboard cross competitions in Italy in February.
Zoe now faces an uncertain future as UK Sport have withdrawn all her World Class funding but in the last two months in response Zoe has turned entrepreneur and set up several businesses in an effort to fill the funding gap. Zoe commented, "In the last couple of weeks I've just launched ZGLateHolidaysChatel.com and ZGElectronics.com which are part of ZGBusiness.com . I hope todays result convinces UK Sport to fund me but in any case I really want to locate a successful business entrepreneur who can mentor me as I turn entrepreneur myself."
Zoe continued, "I don't know of any other athlete in Great Britain - Summeror winter, who have achieved the results I have but doesn't have UK Sport podium funding. If the top British sporting bodies don't want to help me then I'll try and do it myself."
A battered and bruised Zoe will finish the 2010/11 season off tomorrow when she competes in the re-arranged Korean World Cup here in Arosa.
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