As Zoe Atkin prepares to compete in the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic freeski halfpipe competition beginning February 19, she isn’t trying to become someone new. If anything, she’s arriving more fully as herself — grounded, self-aware, and deeply confident in the work she’s done to get here.

The discipline, which requires athletes to launch themselves out of a towering halfpipe while performing complex aerial tricks, is one of the most technically demanding events in freestyle skiing.

Over the past four years, she’s quietly transformed — not just as an athlete, but in how she understands pressure, fear, and her own identity. Now entering the 2026 Olympic Games as one of the most exciting freeski halfpipe athletes to watch, she carries something far more powerful than expectation: perspective.

“I’m super stoked,” Atkin says to GRAZIA USA. Then she smiles. “I’m also a little bit feeling nervous and stressed and crazy. Definitely so many emotions.”

It’s not uncertainty. It’s awareness.

She knows exactly what this moment represents — not just the culmination of years of physical preparation, but emotional and psychological growth. The version of herself standing at the top of the halfpipe today is calmer, more mature, and more trusting than the athlete she was four years ago.

And that shift didn’t happen overnight.

Rebuilding Her Relationship with Skiing

After her last Olympic cycle, Atkin found herself questioning her future in the sport she’d devoted most of her life to. The pressure had intensified, expectations felt heavier, and she needed space to reconnect with the part of skiing that had always driven her.

“I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to continue skiing and what that looked like,” Atkin opens up to us. “I was just a little bit like, ‘I don’t know about this.’”

In the years since, she has established herself as one of the most consistent and technically impressive freeski halfpipe athletes in the world.

Instead of forcing certainty, she returned with a different mindset — one rooted less in outcomes and more in process. She began focusing on the daily rhythm of training, progression, and rediscovering the enjoyment of the sport.

“That season, I ended up focusing a little bit more on having fun rather than the results,” she says. “And I think having fun and focusing on the process allows the results to happen.”

They did. She won the 2026 X Games gold and stood on the podium at every event she entered that season, proving to herself what had once felt uncertain. That shift — from chasing outcomes to rediscovering joy — became the foundation for everything that followed.

“It made me realize that I could be one of the best,” she says.

More importantly, it allowed her to rebuild trust in herself — not just in what she could accomplish, but in who she was becoming.

Learning to Exist Between Worlds

Atkin has always navigated multiple identities. Born in the United States and competing internationally for Great Britain, she grew up between cultures, shaped by both her British father and Malaysian mother. That duality has influenced how she sees herself — and how others see her.

“I went to Malaysia… and they’re like, ‘Oh, my God, you look so white.’ And then I go to England, and they’re like, ‘Oh, my God, you look exactly like your mom.’”

Rather than seeing those contrasts as conflicting, she’s come to embrace them.

“I think it’s really special and really cool,” she says.

This Olympic experience will carry even deeper meaning. Her family will be there in person this time, watching her compete — a moment she didn’t have during the last Games due to COVID-19.

Their presence represents not just support, but the journey that brought her here.

Redefining Her Relationship with Fear

In freeski halfpipe, fear isn’t something athletes eliminate. It’s something they learn to understand.

Standing at the top of the pipe never becomes completely comfortable. What’s changed for Atkin is her relationship with that instinct — the ability to recognize fear without allowing it to define her.

“I can take a step back and be like, ‘Okay, this is just a feeling,’” she explains. “I feel scared, but that’s not my identity. And I can do it even though I’m scared.”

She describes it simply: doing it scared.

Working with a sports psychologist, along with studying Symbolic Systems at Stanford — a discipline that explores cognition, psychology, and human behavior — has reshaped how she understands her own mind.

The program encouraged her to analyze how thoughts form, how emotions influence decision-making, and how perception shapes performance. That intellectual curiosity has translated directly into her skiing, allowing her to recognize fear as a temporary signal rather than a permanent truth.

“I intellectualize my sport a lot,” she lets us in on. “I analyze everything.” Over time, that awareness has helped her separate instinct from doubt, giving her the clarity to move forward even in moments of uncertainty.

“I really do feel like my mind has changed,” the 23-year-old shares. “And I feel like the way I perceive just how important your mindset is… has really changed my life.”

That shift has allowed her to approach skiing with more clarity, separating momentary emotions from deeper truths.

Progress now reveals itself in subtle ways.

“Tricks that I could never do… I’m doing those as my warm-up tricks now,” she says proudly.

It’s evidence not just of physical growth, but internal evolution.

Confidence, Built Over Time

Confidence, she’s learned, isn’t something that appears suddenly. It’s built gradually, through repetition, experience, and resilience. She no longer approaches competition trying to prove something — to herself or anyone else — but with a deeper sense of trust in the work she’s done and the athlete she’s become.

“That’s definitely something I’ve learned over time,” she says.

Even now, nerves still surface. But instead of interpreting them as weakness, she’s reframed them as part of growth.

“I almost feel like there’s a little bit of a superpower in that,” she tells us. “I get to prove to myself every day… that I can overcome fear.”

What once felt impossible has become familiar. What once felt uncertain has become instinctive.

That confidence isn’t loud. It’s steady.

Creating Space for the Next Generation

Women’s freeskiing continues to evolve, and Atkin is part of a generation expanding what feels possible — not just technically, but culturally.

She never questioned whether she belonged in the sport, in large part because of her older sister, Isabel Atkin, who competed at the highest level before her, winning a bronze medal in women’s freestyle skiing in the 2018 Games.

“She was the reason I got into the sport,” Atkin says. “She was the reason I never even doubted my place in it.”

Now, the freeski pro hopes to offer that same sense of possibility to others watching her.

“I hope that I can be someone that they can watch and be like, ‘Oh, that’s cool. Maybe I could do that one day.’”

Her skiing — particularly her amplitude, or height above the pipe — has become part of that representation.

“I hope that people can watch me ski and they’re like, ‘Oh, sh*t, she’s going so big… That’s so cool that a girl is doing that as well.’”

It’s not just about performance. It’s about visibility, and what visibility makes possible.

Entering the Olympics with Perspective

When Atkin imagines the Olympics now, the dominant emotion isn’t pressure. It’s gratitude.

“I’m definitely super grateful for my journey and how much it’s taught me,” she says, “and for my family and my friends and my team.”

There’s confidence there, too — not rooted in expectation, but preparation.

“I feel like I’m going to go there… 100 percent prepared.”

Preparation, she’s learned, is more than physical. It’s emotional. It’s psychological. It’s the result of years spent understanding herself as deeply as she understands her sport.

Finding Balance Beyond the Halfpipe

For all the intensity of elite competition, Atkin’s life off the slopes is defined by stillness, recovery, and the small rituals that allow her to reset. Her version of balance isn’t about distraction — it’s about restoration.

“I would love to be on a beach somewhere,” she says, describing her ideal day off with a sense of calm that contrasts sharply with the adrenaline of competition.

She’s drawn to strength training, too — not just as preparation, but as something she genuinely enjoys. “I really like to lift,” Atkin shares with us. It’s part of a routine that helps her feel grounded in her body, not just her performance.

But it’s food — and the experience surrounding it — that brings her the most joy. She lights up when describing long, multi-course tasting dinners, the kind of meals that unfold slowly and intentionally. “I would go to the restaurant with the multiple courses,” she says when describing her perfect day. “Like 15 courses.”

After winning gold at the X Games, she marked the moment with dinner at Matsuhisa in Aspen, still carrying the emotional high of what she’d accomplished. “I came from my gold medal, and I was like, I feel so good right now,” she says.

These quieter moments — baths, rest, good meals, and sleep — are essential to sustaining the version of herself that shows up on competition day. They allow her to step outside the pressure and reconnect with something simpler: being present, being human, and being whole.

How Zoe Atkin Hopes to be Remembered After the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics

When asked how she hopes people will describe her after these Olympics, she pauses for a moment, considering the question carefully.

“Cool,” she says, laughing.

Then she answers more honestly.

“Brave or courageous… stylish in my skiing.”

It’s a simple answer, but it reflects everything she’s worked toward — not perfection, but authenticity.

Standing at the top of the halfpipe, fully present in the moment she’s built for, she isn’t trying to eliminate fear. She’s learned how to move forward alongside it.

And that, more than anything, is what brought Zoe Atkin here.