Three-time slopestyle World Champion Sadowski-Synnott reflects on how learning to say ‘no’ helped her get back on top

In 2022, at the age of 20, New Zealand's Zoi Sadowski-Synnott became her country’s first Olympic Winter Games gold medallist after winning the women’s snowboard slopestyle event in Beijing.

She followed that performance days later with silver in big air, giving her a complete set of Olympic medals with the bronze she claimed in big air at the PyeongChang 2018 Games as a 16-year-old.

In 2025, now 24 and just months after returning to competition from an ankle injury she suffered at the end of 2023, Sadowski-Synnott won her third slopestyle World Championships title at the 2025 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships in Engadin, Switzerland.

“I can’t really believe it. I didn't really think about it coming into this week,” she said moments after posting a score of 90.15 in her gold medal-winning second run on Friday 21 March.

The 24-year-old was the last rider to drop into the Corvatsch course during the two-run final and impressed judges and peers alike with a cab 270 boardslide 270, a frontside blunt 450 stalefish, a switch backside 900 Weddle, a frontside 1080 Weddle, then a backside 1260 melon, a cab underflip 540 Indy, and finished with a backside blunt 270 out.

To onlookers it might have looked like Sadowski-Synnott wasn’t feeling any pressure as she tackled the course’s obstacles with ease, but the journey to becoming World Champion a third time has not been without its challenges.

One trick you don’t learn on a slopestyle course is how to adjust to living life at a different speed while recovering from injury.

“Honestly, it was so hard when you’re all ‘go, go, go’ and used to travelling and going to different places and meeting different people and stuff,” she said.

“It’s easy with our sport and how stimulated we are – to get really bored with the rehab process, but I welcomed it because we don’t get it all the time.

“It’s nice to have a break and really take time to recover and think about things and get creative going forward. I was grateful about that.”

Sadowski-Synnott competed in just one World Cup contest in 2024, in September, at the 2024/25 FIS slopestyle season-opener in Cardrona, near her hometown of Wanaka on New Zealand’s South Island. She finished eighth at that event.

But as 2024 shifted into 2025, so too did Sadowski-Synnott’s competitive gears as she delivered back-to-back World Cup victories in slopestyle and big air in Aspen (USA) in February, followed by another slopestyle victory in the season finale in Flachau (AUT) on 14 March. After missing most of the previous 2023/24 season due to injury, she ended the 2024/25 season with the slopestyle Crystal Globe.

“I’m just really stoked to be riding with the girls again and stoked to be part of it. I’ve had fun, and I think that’s what has helped,” she said.

There was also a lot of personal growth during the year she was unable to compete, she said.

Like many athletes competing at a high level, the Beijing 2022 gold medallist continues to learn how to deal with pre-competition nerves and anxiety and the importance of keeping a positive mindset.

“I just try to stay as present as I can in every single moment and not let the outcome overweigh the process. I’m just stoked on every training camp and every competition I get to go to. I’m just grateful to be a part of it and I think that’s what helps me deal with that kind of anxiety.”

One of the key lessons she took away from the past year is listening to her body and recognising what she needs, Sadowski-Synnott said.

The longtime support of her coach, Sean Thompson, has also been instrumental in pushing her to reach new limits, technically and mentally, she said.

“My coach is the best. We’ve been working together for a really long time and we have a really good relationship where he can tell me how it is (laughs), and I can tell him how it is as well,” said Sadowski-Synnott.

“I trust him on any call he takes, and if I’m feeling like ‘I don’t think I’m ready to try this trick’ he either reads me, or gives me the motivation to go ahead with it.”

Thompson has been by Sadowski-Synnott’s side every time she’s competed on the world stage. 

“I’m extremely lucky to have my coach at every single competition. It makes a huge difference,” she said.

In what is possibly a sign of things to come, Sadowski-Synnott won her first World Championships title in 2019, followed by a second victory in 2021, then went on to win Olympic gold in 2022.

But the New Zealander isn’t thinking too much about the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Games just yet, not when she has so much to enjoy on home snow in the southern hemisphere after a spectacular season of competition culminating in these World Championships in Engadin.

“I’m pretty excited for big air next week and to be done with competing for the season (laughs), and I’m pretty excited to get home and hang out with my family and to just go back to New Zealand and go snowboarding there.

“The best thing about snowboarding in New Zealand is that we have it really cool where we can chill by the lake during the winter and be able to drive up and ride in really good snow conditions in the mountains.

“One of the best things about where I’m from in New Zealand, Wanaka, is we’re about an hour and a half to the ocean to go surfing, and then we also have the mountains right there. That’s pretty special.”

While surfing and snowboarding are both considered by many as extreme sports requiring similar levels of skill and courage, Sadowski-Synnott will not be switching to surfing anytime soon.

“I feel like surfing is so much gnarlier than snowboarding (laughs),” she said.

“I’ve been out surfing in big waves and the feeling of dropping on a big wave that’s barreling, it doesn’t compare to snowboarding. It’s a whole 'nother level. So I have a lot of respect for surfers.”

Sadowski-Synnott’s last event at these World Championships, women’s big air, is scheduled to begin on Wednesday 26 March.