Bronze medal winner in the Winter Olympics slopestyle, Jenny Jones, was the fourth most talked about athlete at the games globally, according to statistics from the British Olympic Association.
According to the BOA, three million people watched Jones win Britain’s first ever medal on snow and 20m saw it online, on other programmes, or heard it on the radio.
The 33-year-old Bristolian, who started out with a free half hour lesson on a dry ski slope when she was 16, has almost single handedly safeguarded the future of snowsport funding in the UK. More talent is in the pipeline and hopefully the coaching and financial support will be there to maximise this potential and ensure exciting times ahead for snowsports.
“Now we’ve got a medal on the team, freestyle will get the help it needs for four years, which should mean that youngsters will get more time on the snow,” says Jones. “There are some good ones coming through and hopefully they’ll have good support around them and a good network who have all experienced their first Olympics. That knowledge and experience will help for the next one.”
The upcoming issue of Leisure Management features a full length interview with Jones, talking about the early years, how she blazed the trail, how an injury threatened the Olympics for her and how it felt to put down the medal winning run.
