STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — Steamboat Springs is house to a number of the greatest winter athletes, born and bred to stay life on the mountain.
Denver7 caught up with one native Olympian, Mick Dierdorff, to find out about his journey to get to the world’s largest sports activities stage.
Dierdorff’s earliest reminiscences start on Steamboat’s slopes.
“I used to be in a bit harness in entrance of my dad taking place. I used to be part of the Little Toots program and a ski racer within the Soda Pop Slalom,” defined Dierdorff.
Dierdorff began on skis as a tiny toddler. He raced for almost 10 years, and was good at it however then made the large change to snowboarding.
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“Once I began snowboarding, I simply needed to do the free type occasions,” Dierdorff mentioned.
In highschool, he’d spend his afternoon on Howelson Hill, training and perfecting his craft.
“I had a coach that mentioned, ‘You actually gotta do this occasion. You’d be good at it, you want to simply bomb down the hill,'” he remembered.
Dierdorff’s occasion is known as snowboard cross, sort of like motocross. It is a quick and livid competitions in contrast to some other. He defined the way it works.
“A gate drops, and there’s 4 or six folks that exit of the gate on the similar time. It’s all about technical troublesome options, jumps, rollers after which large berms and also you’re racing head-to-head towards these different athletes,” he defined
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Dierdorff by no means thought the Olympics could possibly be in attain till he was graduating highschool. He thanked his mother and pop for all the time supporting his goals.
“My dad and mom have been the perfect, they by no means pushed me to do something. You gotta discover that can by yourself and that zeal for one thing that you simply love,” he defined.
He mentioned qualifying for the Olympics was robust with solely 4 spots to fill throughout all the nation. Regardless of the percentages, Dierdorff made it to the Winter Video games. His first expertise was in South Korea in 2018 after which once more in Beijing in 2022.
“Seeing the Olympic village and going via the opening ceremonies… it nonetheless offers me chills, it was superb,” he remembered.
He had a giant crash, however nonetheless made it into the finals.
“I used to be a bit busted up… I walked away with fifth place which was robust understanding how shut I used to be to probably medaling,” he mentioned.
Whereas Dierdorff is retired from the game now, he goals of the day he’ll get his new child daughter out on a snowboard.
Mick Dierdorff, snowboarding Olympian, talks about snowboard cross
