Meet Jenny Jones

"You choose your route down the mountain and so you it will always be an expression of who you are."

Meet Jenny Jones - snowboarding's finest

For all the acres of beaches, forests, rivers and hills – one thing the UK lacks is some big old mountains. So when snowboarder Jenny Jones emerges from this sceptred isle and starts to absolutely kill it on the international circuit, you better sit up and take note.

After placing first in both the New Zealand and Japanese Opens on the prestigious Ticket to Ride snowboard tour earlier this year, it’s hard to believe that Ms. Jones was somewhat of a late starter to snowboarding. Having only spent a week on snow, she packed herself off to Tignes in the French Alps to spend a typical season working for pennies as a chalet maid to get a precious few hours on riding every day.

Early success

At the end of that season, she entered the Big Air at the British Snowboard Championships on the advice of a friend - and she won it. “There wasn’t a lot of competition at the time,” she shrugs modestly, “especially amongst the girls. Somehow I could do backflips. They weren’t cool backflips but more elongated gymnastics backflips – but it got me noticed all the same!”

"I’d be pretty stoked if it was just talent that got me there,"

It was her background in gymnastics, in fact, that helped give her the strength, coordination and spatial awareness that snowboarding demands. But even then, she put in the hours to get where she is today. “I’d be pretty stoked if it was just talent that got me there,” she is keen to stress. ”I rode every day, doing a lot of jumps and trying out different spins. Just having time on the board really made the difference more than anything else.”

Making it look easy

“It would only ever be injuries that would stop me wanting to snowboard,” she adds. “I just want to go out and get better because I don’t think you can ever really be good enough.” It is such determination, it seems, that turns everyday riders into superstar pros. And whether it is natural talent or not, when attacking kickers, rails or just free riding, her flawless, make-it-look-easy style cannot be denied.

“If you are going to land something, do it properly, not all airy fairy!” she says with conviction. “I like to be smooth and solid and hold grabs for a long time. I could probably huck round to a 720 or a 900 but it would be so uncontrolled that it would look gross.”

But when the wind is biting, the mercury is far below zero and the visibility is such that you fail to make out even your own hand, what is it that makes someone trek out into the wilderness time and time again? Jenny has the answer: “With snowboarding, no one ever tells you what to do. You know what you want to learn, the grabs you like and how you want to style them. You choose your route down the mountain and so you it will always be an expression of who you are.”