Adamczykova still writing new chapters in remarkable SBX story
Feb 14, 2024·Snowboard Cross
Where to begin with Eva Adamczykova?
In the past 12 months alone the Snowboard Cross sensation has rebounded from injury to claim a FIS World Championship gold medal, won through to the final of a celebrity dancing contest after ten weeks on Czech television, and topped a World Cup podium in her first race back from the ballroom.
For other riders on the circuit, either of those snowboarding achievements might be career defining. Throw in the on-stage success in sequins and stilettos and it becomes clear that Adamczykova has vast reserves of one core quality missing in many: self-belief.
“I gain my self-belief from the past - I can see that many times I have fallen down but also many times I have recovered,” she says.
“I’ve done ten years of racing and competing in World Cups and while I’ve had some good results, there are also some comebacks to remember and be proud of. So I’m trying to look back into the history of my career and inspire myself from that.”
Sporting comebacks don’t get much better than Adamczykova’s. After suffering a career-threatening double ankle break at Montafon in December 2021, she missed the Beijing 2022 Olympics but recovered her fitness and form in time to win gold at the 2023 FIS World Championships in Bakuriani, Georgia, in March.
“Last season the main focus wasn’t really on the World Championships, it was about taking it easier and trying to see what I could do on the course,” the 30-year-old says.
“If you are coming back from a lot of injuries, you’re more conscious and more worried about what can happen. But I also know what I have gone through and that I have recovered from many injuries and failures before, and that makes me stronger in my head.
“Last season it got better and better and I slowly built my self-belief that I could ride again at 100%. Bakuriani was just a perfect day for me - everything clicked.”
Adamczykova has spent most of her career redefining what passes for ‘normal’ in women’s Snowboard Cross. The rider who marker pens a moustache on her face before a big final is chasing a fourth Crystal Globe and she remains the youngest Olympic Winter Games champion in the discipline, following her gold medal at Sochi 2014 aged 20.
How big a gamble was it, though, to put her snowboarding career on hold again for a TV show?
“I had been wanting to do Stardance for a while but it wasn’t the right time before,” she says. “After Bakuriani, I gave Stardance to myself like a present. I thought, ‘Yes I’ve won the world championship, it’s great and I’m still having fun, but this is something for me’.
Full-on for fitness
“It was really fun but also really intense physically and mentally, because you couldn’t rest as much. It was ten weeks of shows every Saturday, and before it even started I was in training for two-and-a-half months.
“So my fitness levels stayed about the same because the choreographies were around one minute and 30 seconds - pretty close to the duration of a Snowboard Cross race. Maybe I lost some kind of power, but throughout most of it I was still able to do my gym and athletic trainings.”
Her rivals on the FIS World Cup circuit would surely all agree: Adamczykova lost none of her power while she was away. But having moved up to fourth in the overall standings with the win in St. Moritz and subsequent finishes of second and fifth at the double header in Gudauri, does she now regret missing the races at Les Deux Alpes and Cervinia in December?
“I was discussing it with my team for quite a long time because the decision (to contest Stardance) has to be made quite far in advance,” she says. “I wasn’t preparing myself to go all the way to the final, but even if I was voted out of the competition early I knew I was going to skip the first two World Cups anyway because of the lack of preparation on the snowboard.
“I was super happy about Stardance because although it was competitive, I was there as a beginner and I didn’t have to win it – it was not my job. I had been dancing for only three of four months, so I was expecting to make mistakes. I love Snowboard Cross and I’m always having fun but there is sometimes a little bit more pressure because you are professional.”
'Normal life'
As an Olympic champion, a two-time world champion and a three-times winner of the Crystal Globe, Adamczykova could be forgiven for feeling her rightful place should always be in the spotlight, either on top of a podium or on TV. But when her thoughts turn to the future the Czech star wants less media exposure, not more of it.
“I feel I’m on TV quite a lot already so I would love to ease down,” she says. “When I quit professional snowboarding I would like to take a little break from it all and enjoy a normal life - even though I still think I have quite a normal life. I’d like to get out of the public eye a bit more and have easy, mellow times.
“But I really don’t have that many ideas in my mind about what I want to after snowboarding; it is all quite blurred. Maybe that’s why I’m still snowboarding.”
After a career of so many highs and during a season which still promises much, is the hunger still there for one last dance at an Olympic Winter Games, in February 2026?
“It will be great if I can make it to Milano-Cortina but for me it is still quite far away, even though I know it is just two years and time flies pretty fast,” she says.
“Right now I’m not thinking about it - I’m just trying to enjoy racing as much as I can.”
For Adamczykova and the rest of her rivals on the FIS World Cup circuit, the racing will resume in Sierra Nevada (ESP) on 1-3 March.
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