In the world of sports, it is common knowledge that grit and grinding must precede greatness. With stories of Michael Phelps going five years without a single day off and Kobe Bryant playing with a broken hand, many see the path to glory as unpleasant to borderline torturous.
However, snowboarders seem to have a more hakuna matata approach to their discipline. With the Winter Olympics underway in Milan, we spoke to Canadian snowboarders Eliot Grondin and Eli Bouchard. The main takeaway: these two international greats are focused, but they’re also having fun.
Photo: Photo by Mark Blinch/COC
Eliot Grondin has been snowboarding for 20 years — and he’s only 24. “I remember being a little kid seeing Shaun White on TV at the 2006 Olympics and wanting to be just like him. When my mom saw me standing on my sled in the backyard, she signed me up for snowboarding lessons,” said Grondin.
As he grew up, Grondin became increasingly skilled in snowboard cross, an event where he races three other athletes on a winding track. He first won competitions against kids his own age, then against those older than him. Grondin remembers, “At times, it kind of felt like I was an imposter and didn’t really belong. It can be pretty scary to be racing against adults when you’re a kid. I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a team that believed in me from a young age.”
When he was just 16, Grondin competed at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. Four years later, he returned to the Games, winning a silver medal in the men’s event and a bronze in the mixed team event. While the medals were a highlight, Grondin says 2022 was tough because “Beijing happened in the middle of COVID, so everything was on lockdown and there was no human side to the event.”
Since then, he has been preparing for his third Olympic appearance with hopes of bringing home more medals. “Everything in the last year has been focused toward this week. Once you arrive, it’s all about applying everything you’ve learned and trained for in the last four years.”
When asked about the secret to his success, Grondin said, “I think being a calm person in a sport where there’s so much happening is really important. It helps me control myself in super tense situations. I train hard, but I also recover hard.”
In Milan, Grondin accomplished his goal of “finishing the race feeling happy, healthy, and without any regrets,” earning a silver medal.
Photo: Courtesy https://olympic.ca/team-canada
Eli Bouchard
If you thought Grondin started young, Eli Bouchard was boarding when he barely crawled. “My dad put me on a snowboard when I was one year old, and the rest is history,” Bouchard recalled. Growing up in Lac‑Beauport, Quebec, he showed an aptitude for the sport early on — especially for highly technical aerial stunts.
When he was eight, Bouchard became the youngest person ever to land a double backflip. Two years later, he became the youngest to land a double cork. “I was so young that I didn’t know anything else — snowboarding was just a part of life. It definitely made me a lot better,” said Bouchard. “I was training pretty much every day. It was snowboarding and then school.”
As he entered his teenage years, Bouchard began inventing his own tricks. “It gets kinda boring to do the same thing over and over again. It’s a lot more fun to find something new. I really just look for ideas that are different and set me apart from everybody else.” Among these innovations is the Moose Flip, an extremely challenging set of contortions designed for the big air event.
Bouchard’s creativity has been rewarded by judges, including a gold medal at the 2025 Aspen World Championships. Now, he’s competing at the ultimate international competition — the Olympics.
Speaking about how his first Winter Games are going so far, the 18‑year‑old said, “There’s definitely more organization and more eyes on you. Honestly, the World Cups are way harder because there’s more people actually competing. Getting on the Olympic team is the biggest part.”
As his lifelong passion reaches heights every snowboarder dreams of, Bouchard’s focus remains grounded. “I’m really just the same as everybody else. I think some people may look up to Olympians and think we’re not reachable, but really anybody could do this if they put their mind to it.”
While he narrowly missed qualifying for the big air final — placing 14th, with the top 12 advancing — Bouchard will still compete in slopestyle this week. He plans to “put some music on, go with the flow, and just have some fun” as Canada cheers him on.
Header image: Eliot Grondin – Team Canada
