"Level so high"

Olympic champion Anna Gasser reinvents herself

Olympic snowboarding champion Anna Gasser wants to make the young competition look old with a new trick at the Big Air World Cup in China.

At the age of 33, Anna Gasser is now considered the "grande dame" of the snowboarding circus. However, the two-time Olympic champion is not resting on her laurels. At the Big Air World Cup in China this weekend, she wants to make the young competition look old with a new trick: "I've had to adapt my jumps because the level is simply so high. Sometimes you have to change something to keep going."

At the beginning of November, the Carinthian skier did the so-called "Cab Triple Cork 1260" for the first time during training on the Stubai Glacier: "Thank goodness it went well straight away. I worked all summer on changing my technique and also my rotations."

The whole change also involves a certain amount of risk. "You have to keep developing in order to stay at the front," Gasser clarifies. In mid-October, she failed to qualify for the first time in her picture-book career at the city event in Chur, Switzerland, with two crashes.

Not the first time
Incidentally, this is not the first time that Austria's snowboard star has completely reinvented herself. In 2013, she was the first woman to attempt a "Cab Double Cork 900", five years later she once again secured an entry in the sports history books with a "Cab Triple Underflip 1260".

Unlike gymnastics superstar Simone Biles, no trick will bear Gasser's name. In snowboarding, the jumps are named after the approach, handholds, spins and somersaults.