Slopestyle gold medallist Mathilde Gremaud: Overcoming a concussion, battling Ailing (Eileen) Gu and skiing without pressure

Mathilde Gremaud had a clear plan heading into the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games.

After winning slopestyle silver at PyeongChang 2018, the Swiss freestyle skier wanted to go one better this time around.

Enter China’s Ailing (Eileen) Gu, the host nation’s superstar skier, was aiming to win the Slopestyle, Big Air, and Halfpipe competitions – something that no other athlete has ever achieved.

She ultimately came very close to doing so, winning two golds from three, but in slopestyle, her friend Mathilde Gremaud rose to the occasion, taking the Olympic title.

After some serious career setbacks, it was just rewards for the impressive Swiss freestyler.

Gremaud has been an elite freestyle skier since 2017, having taken a stunning Big Air gold medal at that year’s Winter X Games, despite being just 17 at the time.

From there, she quickly established herself as one of the world’s very best, going on to take another Big Air gold at the same event two years later, while also earning a superb silver at the 2018 Olympics – this time in slopestyle.

While all was looking good for Gremaud, over the next few years, a new challenger would emerge, one who put the entire sport on notice.

Gu burst onto the scene in 2020, taking two gold medals and silver (not for the last time) at the 2020 Youth Olympics in Lausanne.

Over the next 18 months, Gu would dominate freestyle skiing, after winning a pair of golds at the Winter X Games and the World Championships in Aspen.

Trying to keep pace with Gu that year was Gremaud, who finished in second place behind her young rival in slopestyle at the 2021 World Championships.

However, when it came to the 2022 Olympics, having already won a silver in 2018, the Swiss skier claims that the pressure was off this time around thanks to a mindset shift.

_“_I was like, yeah, whatever happens, I already have my silver medal from four years ago and I can just enjoy and have a good time. And for me, I had no pressure at all. I just definitely had pressured [myself] during the summer and it was harder mentally,” Gremaud explains to Olympics.com.

“But I think then I was like, I need to change my approach about that. I need to. I know that there’s pressure here and people have expectations and I just need to work better around it.”

What transpired in Beijing was an epic contest between Gu and Gremaud, who went toe-to-toe in both Big Air and slopestyle. While Gu was victorious in Big Air – with Gremaud taking a well-earned bronze – slopestyle went right down to the wire.

Both women would score big in just one of their three runs, with both also scoring an 86. Crucially, Gremaud did just enough to hold off the 18-year-old, taking gold by just 0.33 thanks to her strong second run.

Managing to beat such a dominant rival is impressive enough, but the journey to Beijing hadn’t been smooth sailing for the 22-year-old from Fribourg. As she explains, a scary concussion after a crash last year severely impacted her training plans.

_“_I was pretty unlucky. I actually hit my head kind of like twice, kinda bad. And the first time I didn't think it was too bad. But then like a month later, I had [another] concussion too and that one was bad - or looked bad at least. Right when it happened, my parents and my manager were like, ‘Yeah, we need to do something,’” she reveals.

“We found this clinic in the US. And they just like, believe in neuroplasticity, which is like building those connections in your brain again after you have a concussion or any problem in your head. I did that and it was really amazing.”

After such a traumatic setback, Gremaud’s gold is all the more remarkable. So too is the camaraderie shared between herself and her fellow skiers.

New viewers of snowboarding and freeskiing may have noticed the fraternal nature of the sport, with a great deal of respect shared between all of the competitors.

As Gremaud highlights, after learning she’d done enough to earn an Olympic gold medal in Slopestyle, Gu - and bronze medallist Kelly Sildaru - all shared in the collective joy of their achievements together.

“I think we were stoked about being on the podium [with] all of us three together because we were like, ‘this is a podium that we like.’ It's like a good three. So yeah, we were stoked”.

Despite being great rivals on the slopes, she also describes how delighted Gu was for Mathilde to have won a gold of her own in Beijing.

“We were waiting for her [Gu’s] score and then watching Kelly's [Sildaru’s] run as well. After her score came out, she was like, ‘Oh, I'm so f*****g happy for you!’ And I was like, well, thank you! And yeah, we were kind of like laughing,” Gremaud says.

“We're like, 'Yeah, we both got a gold and another medal.' We were like stoked that we both got one.”

“It was a good time and I was really stoked for her as well. To just see her mental game is just insane.”