Inside the daredevil world of ski halfpipe with Zoe Atkin: It's a risky thing. But I train for this'

"What we do is pretty risky, she says. When a regular person watches, they're like, Oh my god, these guys are crazy. What are they doing?' No wonder, given her sport involves skiing down a 22-foot wall of ice before twisting and spinning her body high into the sky and landing back on the wall. Then repeating the daredevilry five more times in quick succession. Crashing and injuries are inevitable."

"Does she feel fear? Of course, she says. It's a 22-foot wall of ice and we're doing manoeuvres over it. There are some adrenaline junkies out there, but I've definitely always felt fear very acutely. That was something I struggled with a lot in the past. But now I am going 15-feet out of the half pipe so you have to be like, OK, I'm going to go higher and it's going to be more dangerous'."

Zoe Atkin is a 23-year-old Team GB freestyle skier studying symbolic systems at Stanford. Her sport requires skiing down a 22-foot wall of ice, twisting and spinning high above the wall and repeating six runs in quick succession. She flies higher and spins faster than most rivals, increasing crash and injury risk. She experiences acute fear and works with a sports psychologist to reframe fear as a biological feeling that can be managed. Her Stanford studies in psychology, probability, and mathematics inform her understanding of fear. She trains to push boundaries and aim for Olympic gold.

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