Olympic halfpipe champion returns Snowboard star Iouri Podladtchikov makes his comeback

SDA

10.1.2025 - 09:20

Iouri Podladtchikov wants to give it another go
Iouri Podladtchikov wants to give it another go
Keystone

Iouri Podladtchikov ended his career in 2020 after almost twenty years on the snowboarding scene. Now the 2014 Olympic champion is making a surprise return to the competition stage.

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  • Iouri Podladtchikov returns to the international competition stage.
  • The 2014 Olympic halfpipe champion will compete in the Snowboard World Cup in Laax and is aiming to take part in the Winter Games in northern Italy next winter.
  • Swiss-Ski announced this in a press release. The 36-year-old retired in August 2020. The last time he competed at the highest level in a halfpipe contest was at the Laax Open five years ago.

He has three World Championship medals to his name - in addition to gold in Canada in 2013, he won silver in 2011 and 2017 - seven X Games medals and 14 World Cup podiums.

Podladtchikov celebrated his most significant success at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi - in his parents' home country and in the country where he was born and for which he competed until 2006.

He also performed the yolo flip there: this trick involves two somersaults and four twists, which makes the phase after the rotations particularly tricky because the landing can hardly be prepared.

In summer 2020, the Zurich native ended his career after almost 20 years of competing because his body was no longer able to cope in the years before. Now "I-Pod", who, after snowboarding, was mainly occupied with his second passion, photography, is planning to make his comeback in Laax on Friday, January 17, as reported by Swiss-Ski. "I still feel an incredible amount of desire and joy," says the 36-year-old.

Podladtchikov explains that he never fully digested missing the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang at short notice due to a traumatic brain injury and the absence a year later due to a torn Achilles tendon. "I see my return to the World Cup as a great opportunity for a conciliatory end to my career. My goal is the 2026 Olympic Games."

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