We’re only 6 weeks into 2018 and it’s already been a wild one for snowboarder Maddie Mastro.
The 17-year-old rider not only won her first X Games medal during the Snowboard SuperPipe competition last week (January 27), but also clinched a spot on Team USA to compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea!
X Games Aspen 2018 – Complete Coverage
After landing what was the best in Maddie’s snowboarding career, the Mammoth native threw a 1080, jumping from sixth to second on her third and final run.
Celeb Secrets caught up with Mastro to talk about her bronze medal win, how she plans on improving her runs for future competitions, and her excitement to be competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics — make sure to take a read at the Q&A!
You can follow Maddie on Instagram at @maddiemastro and watch her compete in the Women’s Snowboard SuperPipe competition during the 2018 Winter Olympics beginning Monday, February 12th with the final rounds on Tuesday, February 13th.
(Photo by Pete Demos / ESPN Images)
Celeb Secrets: Congratulations on winning the bronze medal! I saw your mom in the audience and she was so proud of you and your win. How exciting is it to have your first X Games medal?
Maddie Mastro: “Thank you! It’s pretty surreal. It’s happened so quickly and just to finally be in this place and medal at X Games is such an amazing feeling.”
CS: What was it like going into the competition — how did you prepare for this?
MM: “For me, competing is just doing what I love and going out and having fun, so it’s just like another day of snowboarding. I treated riding like that tonight and tried to have as much fun as I could in such a stressful situation and it proved to work this time.”
CS: Snowboarding for women is progressing so much. How are you going to incorporate this progression into future runs in competition?
MM: “I’m really happy that I could even — just like tonight — play a part in my own progression. That was a pretty huge thing. I hope that more and more things can just be better, bigger, cleaner, and have more style on it and I hope to push the sport in that way.”
CS: You’re only 17 and you’re doing so much. I know you’re going to the Olympics to represent Team USA in Pyeongchang very soon — are you super stoked to represent your country?
MM: “Oh yes! It’s going to be amazing. I’m going to have so many friends with me as well as an amazing group of girls so it’s going to be such a surreal and once in a lifetime opportunity and I’m happy to get to be apart of it.”
CS: What’s one thing you’d like to tackle this season?
MM: “Probably to have as much fun as humanly possible for the rest of the riding season. After the Olympics, the hard part is over (laughs).”
