Eva Samkova on entering her third Olympic season

And in PyeongChang it was pretty hard, because I tried to not put pressure on myself. I tried to distress myself and kept telling myself that it was a normal race, like any other one. But that didn’t work out so well and one day before the finals I had to kind of rethink everything and push myself to be wanting to win the Olympics. I was in a really weird mental stage and I didn’t know, if I wanted to win or not. So, the second Olympics were really hard for me, because the focus was on me and everything was a little stressful.

But I hope these Olympics now in Beijing, I hope I will be a little more chill as for the mental side, because I hope to be more used to being under the stress now. And you know, it would be super nice to get a third Olympic medal, but if things don’t go as planned, I still have two medals at home and a lot of other great achievements and I think I’ve done my job properly so far. And from this point on it’s adding little extras to the career.

But for sure, all Olympics are stressful, nevertheless I hope these ones will be more chill for me.

What would you tell young snowboard cross athletes just entering into the World Cup circuit?

That falling and crashing is normal and that it’s going to happen a lot of times. And that when you enter a heat and make a mistake and end up not winning, it’s ok, because you end up learning.

I did a lot of stupid mistakes in my career, but that’s just a learning process. That’s normal in every sport and also in ours that you see the way and journey ahead and you are following the path, but along the way you have to make some mistakes in order to get better.

And also, when I was young and entering the World Cup, I was super afraid of the good girls and huge stars of the World Cup, so don’t be afraid and just fight them like everybody else and don’t let them intimidate you. Like me, I was so afraid of for instance Dominique Maltais (CAN) and was braking to let her pass through. So…don’t do that! But actually…that’s me giving advice against myself right now, isn’t it?! 😊  

Which one is your favourite snowboard cross feature to ride and why?

Actually, I think jumps. If you have a good jump and the landing is super soft and nice, I really like that. I like that you can fly high and long, that’s fun! And if you have a good landing, that is just perfect!

Also, I like some kind of doubles, like double rollers. They are fun too.

What is most challenging for you when competing during a worldwide pandemic?

Definitely to not get irritated by all the rules, because everybody really wanted to see the World Cup happen and it was awesome that we could compete despite the pandemic and all the organizers did a fantastic job, but sometimes all the rules, restrictions, mask wearing obligations they are a little bit irritating. So, for me that was the most challenging thing to keep my chill and not go crazy with all those PCR tests and so on. I mean, I know that it is necessary to keep the safety measures in place and to enable the event, but sometimes it just was a little bit much.

What do you wish for the future of the sport of SBX?

I wish that SBX will stay still challenging and exciting and fun to watch for the fans and fun to ride for us athletes. I wish for it to get a bigger sport and encourage young kids and young people, because it is such a beautiful sport. And I also wish that we will keep having snow with all these environmental and climate changes.

Name three things you love about SBX.

1 – To go down the course in heats!

2 – That you can mess up the start and still be able to win!

3 – It’s a really fair sport and a fair community. I love the community, because we are always in a good mood and super friendly with each other. Competitive, but friendly 😊

This interview got us all excited for the season kick-off, which will happen already on November 28 with the Olympic test event in Secret Garden, China. Make sure to tune in to get a little breeze of the Olympic flair and please come back to our website more frequently now to not miss out on any season updates. And in the meantime, you can find the FIS Snowboard Cross World Cup calendar HERE.