Q&A
Where is your medal now? On a shelf at home, in its Sochi 2014 wooden box.
Did you ever fancy trying the boarder cross?
Jones had a huge amount of press attention at the Sochi 2014 Games
Oh no, I’m not that aggressive! With slopestyle it’s all down to you, but with boardercross there are four other people who can knock you down.
you just have to push your- now and then like to celebrate the self past that FEAR and
Is there a good party scene among the snowboarders? Ha, ha, it’s important to enjoy what you do! People work hard, and train hard at the gym and
once you get past it there’s a sense of acheivement
This was an exciting time: at the age of 22, having just moved onto the international circuit and winning three large competitions in a row, Jones received her fi rst invitation to a major international event. “I felt like I was on a roll when I got invited to the X Games, which is pretty prestigious in snowboarding terms,” she says. “I was over the moon, but then in train- ing, before the contest even began, I had a bad fall on the jump and that was it, I was out.” She had torn her anterior cruciate ligament and damaged her menis- cus, so was forced to spend the next nine months out of snowboarding. For some, this might have been enough to wind down their career, but not for Jones. She fought back from injury and by 2006 was back on top form, fi n- ishing the year second in the World Snowboard Tour Rankings. Happily, fi ve years later, she was
invited back to the X Games and this time took gold -– something, she says, she will never forget. This was fol- lowed up by two more golds in 2010. Despite getting her fi rst World Cup podium in August 2013, with a sil- ver in New Zealand, the run up to the Olympics was far from smooth. “I would say the three months before the
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Olympics were one of my lowest points of my whole career,” she says. “I expe- rienced a concussion in a fall during training in Austria and felt the symp- toms for so long, which was testing both physically and mentally. I wouldn’t want to go through it again.” It’s testament to Jones’ nerve and
determination that she managed to come back from such a recent con- cussion to fi nd some of her fi nest ever form at the Olympics. “Some injuries have affected me more than others. It has never made me scared of snowboarding, but some- times the fear is related to a certain jump or trick,” she says. “You do worry about whether it could happen again, but you just have to push yourself past that fear and once you get past it there’s a sense of achievement.” This focus and dogged determi- nation, combined with the ability to review, refl ect, alter and get better is what has made her an Olympic medal- list, according to performance director for British Ski and Snowboard, Paddy Mortimer. “Her qualities include com- plete and utter perseverance,” he says. “She has driven herself and fuelled her passion in a number of ways, and had the courage to stick it out and keep pushing herself.”
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result and have a party. There’s good camaraderie between the girls; it’s a nice part of it.
What music are you into? Old style funk, Beautiful Girls, Razorlight, DJ Yoda, Zero 7, Sizzla, Mishka, Scissor Sisters, hip hop.
What’s your favourite fi lm?
The Usual Suspects, True Romance, Cinema Paradiso, Leon, The Goonies, Bridget Jones’s Diary.
What’s your favourite book? Life of Pi, Blink.
Where would you like to see yourself in the future?
Still riding, summers by the beach, studying, travel, in the company of good friends…
THE OLYMPICS Sochi was the fi rst time slopestyle had been featured in the Olympics and Jones prolonged her career in order to enter. The sport involves rid- ers launching themselves off rails and massive jumps (men and women ride the same course), doing aerial tricks, which are marked for technical ability and diffi culty by judges. Jones says her aim was simply to
make it to the fi nal, so she was more nervous in the semis. She was six years older than the rest of the fi eld
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