It was when I picked up my first snowboard at ten
that I was like, I really want to become a pro snowboarder,
become the best in the world and then go to the Olympics.
She's the actual world champion.
Young B gets a second chance to be on the podium.
When you have an injury like that,
it was quite devastating for all of us.
So I'm going to Switzerland
for the first training camp this season.
Beijing is in February.
Like I only want to win one thing,
and that's a gold medal at the Games.
So this is Tigerlily.
And then this is Captain Jack,
and that's the mom, and that's the son.
Five times a day.
He's your son.
This goes for about half an hour
So I go out and do my bike session
then come back and he'll probably be just finishing up.
I hate the cold,
which is quite funny with being a snowboarder.
I like being somewhere warm.
So the beauty about being in Australia
is that I want to feel that sun
before I get back into it again.
I mean emotionally I prepare myself for this ***
but it hurts all the time.
It's part of, you know, being a snowboarder.
There's a lot of things that go off slope,
throughout the year, like we spend
probably 30 - 40 days on the snow.
But the rest of it's in the gym.
Come on, Belle.
Cardio, fitness, your explosivity, your reaction time
training, football training, you know,
trying to get that body awareness up.
The first time I met her,
her work ethic was very much second to none.
You could see the drive in her
and the commitment to try and improve every single day.
Good sesh.
I like to win, and I like getting medals
and going fast and beating everyone,
like, that's just my nature.
That's all I want to do.
So I'd actually just keep going
and I just find the balance as best as possible.
You see this kind of move, that creates nothing here.
She's one of the best snowboarders I have ever seen.
It's natural for her.
My family's had a very rich history
in winter sports in Australia.
My great aunt, Joyce Brockhoff,
was a Australian champion skier,
and she had a lot to do with getting women into skiing.
And Peter Brockhoff, my great uncle,
he went to the Olympic Games twice in the 1960s.
Because of that, I pretty much got thrown on skis
when I was three years old.
And then when I was nine years old,
my mom started snowboarding
and I got so jealous that I wanted to start snowboarding.
Belle Brockhoff!
I also got thrown into racing when I was ten,
Whatever she could throw herself at,
she gave it her all and her best.
She was very ballsy.
Yeah, I just enjoy going fast
and it's quite a high-adrenaline sport.
So I'm a two-time Olympian.
From my first Olympic Games when I was 21
to now when I'm 28
like there's so much growth in there, you know?
And a lot of things have happened during that time.
In 2017, I was 11 months out
from the Games in Pyeongchang 2018
and I ended up having a crash.
At that point,
I said, "Ok, well I have to make a decision.
Do you have a crack?
Is that even possible to race without an ACL
or do you just come back
and throw the whole thing in the bin?"
I wanted to give it a red hot go,
and that's what I did.
The rehab for me, it was really dry.
It was five times a day, seven days a week.
I came back four months later on snow.
Did like the first run, which was really scary for me.
Belle 4th, really bad start.
What if my knee re-ruptures itself
or I crash or whatever, you know?
It was just literally just taking one run at a time,
not thinking too much of the bigger picture just yet.
I felt better and better,
and then I just kind of built up from there.
I felt really good.
And then...
And that was two months out from the Games.
That kind of hit us really hard.
Oh my God, your breath stinks.
I guess every athlete kind of questions, you know,
whether they want to stick to the sport,
how long or whatever,
you know, when they have major setbacks, it's like,
"Oh my God, maybe I'm not good enough."
Mental health, I think it's really important.
-Belle! -Morning.
My sports psych Stacy,
she's based in the States, but we do have regular video chats
and we just talk about the stuff that I need to work on.
What are you most looking forward to?
Just getting back on the track again really.
You know, I had that injury
and so I missed out on the back end of the season.
But...
All the work over the last two years
kind of carried over into this.
-Sounds like a big win. -Yeah.
From 2017 till 2021,
it's taken me a long time
to get that confidence back in myself
and as an athlete and how I do things.
You know, even now with COVID
and just, you know, different lockdowns and the restrictions,
I stay inside all the time and then just
it will just be a compounding effect of of depression,
and it's horrible.
You can see like a lot of people
who are at breaking point, or beyond it
-Like have given it their all. -Yeah.
Yeah.
COVID, you know, has given me
a lot of time to reflect quite a bit
on that part of my life and does help
catching up with your family, taking your focus off yourself.
When is it enough Parmesan?
It's never enough Parmesan.
I went through depression and I went through anxiety
to a point where like I was, I started to self-harm.
And I also started thinking of ways how to take my own life.
And that's where I owe a lot to my snowboarding,
because that was the one thing that gave me a lot of peace
and a lot of happiness.
What do you want?
If you let your vulnerability and fears
kind of take control of your life, that's not good.
So even though I had a gnarly crash,
if I didn't compete at the Games,
I would have regretted it.
You can either take it as an opportunity
to better yourself or you can just throw in the towel.
Belle Brockhoff from Australia.
You know, I had my knee brace,
I had everything kind of physio taped up.
The goal went from a gold medal at the Games
to like, okay, let's see what my body and mind can do.
3.37 to be exact, seventh place.
From there, like, you know,
I was able to back up that momentum once again
in training.
And even though my body feels powerful and strong,
the mental side of things is really the make or break.
At the World Champs this year, I did have another crash.
I just went a bit too hard
and you can actually see my head
fold over the front and then back.
And then on the second impact,
that's where I knocked myself out
and I knew I broke my wrist.
I have a big plate in here.
But even though I had another crash and I knocked myself out
and I broke my wrist, this time I can cope with that.
I was still able to back up that mentality that I had,
and that was a really big win for me.
So I'm going to Switzerland
for the first training camp of the season
prior to the Olympics.
Race jersey,
really cool.
This one's got my name on it,
which is a nice little personal touch.
My body armor.
And this is really cool stuff, actually.
It hardens on impact,
really important, especially when you're going high speed
and then you're doing crashes like the one we saw.
That's...
One quarter of what I pack.
I'm looking forward to Switzerland
because you know,
there's not many restrictions over there, we can go out,
we can go to different restaurants and whatnot.
Plus you get to snowboard so that's always a win.
Saas-fee has really good tracks
plus all the teams are here
and we can do heats together and just kind of figure out
where we're at and what we need to work on.
It's just taking everything in, really
and getting used to it all.
Yeah, right now we've had a fresh dusting of snow,
so it's a little bit slow.
But it is speeding up just a fraction as we ride through it.
I've been the only female on the team for a very long time.
My whole snowboard cross career.
It's not normal snow.
So it's cool that Josie Baff and Mia Clift
have been on the team with us and training together with us.
It's the first time I've actually had
a group of females on the team with me.
That went perfect, coming to the jump,
a little bit friendly.
For many years, she was alone with the boys team,
now there is two young girls.
It's going really well for her.
She likes to also give her knowledge.
How's your um,
your whack**** skills?
Oh, not bad
You know what whack*** is?
You whack it and then you go ***!
Josie and I both have someone to look up to,
which is super helpful because Belle didn't really have that.
She paved the way.
So she's been through it all and can give us tips
and when we don't know what to do and stuff.
They both know I'm there for them,
and I've expressed it to them
that I'm here at their disposal.
It's Vegemite, every Australian travels with it.
Almost anyway.
This one?
Yeah.
Beijing is in February
and got the media attention is exciting,
like you're watching your social media go up in followers
like there's a lot of all these things
that you haven't like experienced at all
It's exciting, it's fun.
You know, I didn't have another female in the team
to give me those tips and everything.
Having that would have been something quite special.
Beijing, like any Games, it's the Olympics.
There's a lot of media hype around it.
There's a lot of expectations, there's a lot of pressure.
Like I only want to win one thing
and that's a gold medal at the Games.
She's got the level, she's got the background
and know like she's been on the podium.
She won World Cups.
She she's been lucky enough to taste
what is victory.
Snowboarding probably saved my life.
And sharing my story,
I hope people see it as, "Okay,
Well, she's obviously achieved this much,
and she's obviously gone
through a lot of things and that's quite normal."
If it helps one person by me exposing myself like that
then I'm doing my job right.