Grateful for the pressure: Snowboard cross world champ Éliot Grondin hunts for elusive Olympic gold

Éliot Grondin has won almost everything there is to win in the sport of snowboardcross. This February, he’s out to capture the one thing missing from his trophy case: Olympic gold.

Grondin has been hard at work at a training camp in Austria ahead of this weekend’s start of the World Cup season in Breuil-Cervinia, Italy. His first goal is to begin the season “ready to rock,” but the two-time Olympic medallist is focused on one thing above all else.

“Obviously, there's the Olympics [for my] third time. So, it's a big one, which is super exciting," Grondin said. "And for sure, the goal is to finish my collection of medals there.”

The 24-year-old from Sainte-Marie, Que., already owns silver and bronze medals from Beijing 2022, but he’s made it clear that his sights are set on the most prestigious prize in his sport – and it’s hard not to believe he can achieve it.

Grondin is a proven winner at every level of his sport, beginning with a world junior championship gold medal in 2021 and is now coming off back-to-back World Cup overall titles. All of that was punctuated by his first world championship gold-medal win last season.

Coming into an Olympic year as the undeniable favourite, is he taking any confidence from his extended run of success, or is he starting the season with a clean slate?

“A bit of both, I would say, especially after the last couple of years,” Grondin said. “It's good motivation when you don't really want to train as hard some days, but we try to start fresh every year, and look at things that maybe didn’t go as well as we'd hoped, and find a way to get those better.

“Overall … it's nice to remember what I've done and how I've done it, but also find new ways to get better.”

Watch live coverage of the