South Tahoe’s Anderson gets Gnu pro model
By Mary Fenton, ESPN
Among the ranks of professional snowboarders, relatively few riders earn pro models. Factor in the female component, and for this year’s crop of boards, that number dwindles to precisely six: 2010 Olympians Torah Bright and Gretchen Bleiler, Dutch slopestyle sensation Cheryl Maas, Anne-Flore Marxer, Lisa Filzmoser, and the lady with the longest-running pro model, Barrett Christy.
This October, at long last, Christy will have company on Gnu with the release of the Ladies Choice by Jamie Anderson. It’s fitting: Not since Christy, the 10-time Winter X Games medalist, dominated the comp scene in the late-’90s and early ’00s has a female rider won with as much consistency and grace as Gnu’s newest pro (save Tara Dakides and Janna Meyen-Weatherby).
Just 21 years old in September, the South Lake Tahoe native has been a sponsored rider since she was 9 years old. Among her slopestyle accolades (a list that’s becoming so ridiculously long, it’s almost Michael Phelps-ian): the last two TTR World Tour overall wins, the last two Winter Dew Tour overall wins, a Burton Global Open Series win, a U.S. Open win, three Winter X gold medals (also: the youngest medalist and youngest female gold medalist in Winter X history), an Arctic Challenge win. And with two wins in New Zealand already this season — and the promise of Slopestyle on the Winter Olympic program come 2014 — it doesn’t seem like she’s slowing down anytime soon.