Anna
Gasser
Austria
·
Snowboarding
Date of birth | 16 August 1991 |
|---|---|
Place of birth | Villach, Austria |
Age | 34 |
Nationality | Austria |
Career start | 2013 |
Disciplines | snowboarding |
Courageous, broad-minded and open – that's the way that Anna Gasser describes herself. In November 2013 she proved all of these traits with a single trick – becoming the first woman to complete a Cab Double Cork 900. Overnight, the Austrian became the star of a new generation of female freestylers.
“I was always an active child,” says Anna, in looking back to the start of her sporting career, which began well away from the pistes. It wasn’t snowboarding but gymnastics that she discovered at an early age – first as a hobby, but later as an artistic gymnast. At the age of 15 she had had enough. “It was way too time consuming,” she says, as she shakes her head.
For three years she went without dedicating herself to a sport, but then she noticed that "something was missing.” This feeling led the youngster from Carinthia to find her way into snowboarding, all thanks to her cousin. In summer 2010 he showed her a few snowboard videos – and Anna was instantly hooked.
The following winter she got on a board for the first time and, after just a few days, decided that she wanted to be a pro. Her friends laughed at her ambition at the time, but three years later she became the first woman to land a Double Cork 900!
Anna credits her rapid development to two things – her good physical shape and her determination. “I was boarding so much from my first day that I missed a good 50 percent of lessons in my last year of school.” She's anything but proud of that fact today, but all the hours of training paid off.
After finishing school, Anna took a gap year. She went to America and dedicated a whole year completely to snowboarding. When she returned to Austria, nobody was expecting too much from her. Then she did “this trick” and, all of a sudden, the whole world knew her name.
“That was really extreme,” she says, looking back at her Double Cork 900. “From one day to the next I was fully in the limelight.” In February 2014, four years after first setting foot on a snowboard, the Austrian qualified first in slopestyle at the Sochi Olympics. She went on to finish 10th.
A fantastic 2017 season followed, where Gasser took seven wins, including gold at the Burton US Open, victory at the snowboarding World Championships with a score of 100 in Big Air, X Games gold in Hafjell, and the overall Big Air World Cup. She was awarded an ESPY for Best Female Action Sports Athlete.
She didn't let up the pace following that incredible season, either. Her 2018 highlight reel includes both Winter Olympics and X Games gold, and another world-first trick for a female rider: the Cab Triple Underflip.
Anna Gasser, Burton US Open Slopestyle Champion
© Jeff Brockmeyer/Red Bull Content Pool
Kicking back in Innsbruck
© Markus Berger/Red Bull Content Pool
First female Cab Triple Cork in Stubai
© Pally Learmond/Prime Park Sessions
In her element at the Laax Open
© Dom Daher/Red Bull Content Pool