Versatile Winters targets podium in both: alpine snowboard and snowboard cross

There have been plenty of Olympic athletes who cross disciplines. Some have medalled in track in the summer and picked up their skates to race for the podium in the winter. However, not many can juggle two different sports with different equipment, different skills, and different schedules in the same season.

Cody Winters can. The United States snowboarder competes on the FIS World Cup Alpine Snowboard and Snowboard Cross tours, often traversing the globe to make the races on both schedules.

“Balancing the two is a pretty hard job I would say,” he said. “The last two years I feel like I have gotten better at it. The calendars are not built for someone to do both. So there is a lot of travel for me bouncing back and forth.”

This is Winters’ second season competing on both World Cup tours. He said the training focus has been on snowboard cross this season since he feels more confident with his Alpine parallel riding.

“My Alpine riding is pretty good as that is what I have trained on more for the past eight years,” Winters said. “I am basically getting the same World Cup starts in both but I have trained more in boardercross this season.”

The 23-year-old has yet to reach a World Cup podium but he has finished fourth three times this season. Twice in parallel slalom and once in cross.

Two of those high finishes came just one week apart across both disciplines. The quick turnarounds keep Winters on edge. Just the way he likes it.

“Growing up I was competing in every discipline,” he said. “It was the same back then as I was constantly switching from hard boots to soft boots to different disciplines. It is something I have gotten good at. Both disciplines compliment each other. My cross helps in parallel and my parallel helps me in boardercross. They really benefit each other.”

He may be comfortable on both boards and in both boots, but Winters showed some light on the difficulty differences. Each provides their own unique challenges and the labours are not just physical.

“It is different psychologically. In boardercross you can lose to no fault of your own. Someone can take you out and your day can be completely over. In parallel it’s all up to you, there are less variables. In boardercross you have to think of all the options,” Winters said.

No matter the board at his feet, Winters always has one mission when riding down the mountain. Have fun.

“I just like to snowboard. I like to express myself in lots of different ways when I am snowboarding. I am always having a lot of fun when I am snowboarding,” Winters said.

This free-spirited and fun-loving attitude allows for Winters to do some remarkable things. He can quickly adapt when things go wrong on the course and apply skills learned from his cross-discipline training. His comfort riding switch can be a game changing advantage.

“Over the years I have been able to play around with different moves on my hard boots and that has saved me by having a big bag of tricks and being able to pull out certain manoeuvres on the hard boots,” Winters said. “There’s been multiple races where I have gone switch for a few gates and won races because of it.”

Sometimes the multi-dimensional abilities aid him in the offseason. Winters posted a video of him and his buddies throwing down sick tricks in the halfpipe in his hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The only thing was, Winters was pulling off halfpipe tricks in his hard boots and Alpine board built for speed.

In 2022, the US rider brought those skills to the Beijing Olympic Winter Games. A lifelong dream fulfilled, and one that he still struggles to find the words to detail the feelings of living out that dream. “No, no I can’t describe it,” Winters said with a laugh.

Winters competed in the parallel giant slalom event in Beijing, finishing 29th. The journey to make it to the Far East was even harder than the Olympic races.

Winters had to self-fund his entire trip to China. In order to find the money, Winters began his own window washing business in his hometown of Steamboat Springs. He quickly racked up the business orders and was wiping down windows across town. The business boomed enough to get him to Beijing.

“My window cleaning business, I am just as proud of that as some of my snowboard successes,” Winters said.

Whether he needs to wash more windows or not, Winters is already eyeing another run at his Olympic dream in 2026. This time he has a new goal.

““I want to go for a medal this time. Last time I went for the experience. I want to push really hard and have a good result. If that means I have to pick a discipline and only train on that, then that’s what it has to be,” Winters said.

A couple of weeks in the Italian Dolomites will be just another stamp in the crowded Winters passport. Speeding down the mountains on every continent was all part of the plan for the young American.

He loves travelling and taking in nature as much as the world class racing. When asked his favorite place snowboarding has taken him so far, he replied New Zealand. A far off land for a guy who grew up in Colorado. Yet, Winters knew he would always make it there one day.

“It was one of the first places I went internationally. It was just stunningly beautiful,” Winters said. “Did my younger self see myself going there? Honestly, yes. I knew I wanted to snowboard all over the world. So I had hoped to go to many places and still have many places I hope to go to.”

Winters takes that love of adventure into the mountains in the summer as well, as an avid hiker. His family once embarked on a 12-day trek into the wilderness of Wyoming. They found some unexpected, friendly company along the way.

“I was 16 with my brother and my Dad. We were doing a 12-day backpacking trip. We were three days into this trip, really deep into the wilderness, not near any roads. And we woke up to a bear in our camp.

“This bear was staring at us as we are peeking our heads out of the tent. So we start screaming at it and it takes two steps towards us. So we got really nervous but he eventually ran away. But through the night he ate about 80 percent of our food rations.

“We decided to hike out into another valley and get away from the bear. We pushed the remaining days. The fishing was really good and that is why we decided to keep going because we knew we could fish. After that I didn’t eat fish for a while,” Winters said.

Not even bears can hold Winters back from seeking the summit. The man belongs in the mountains and he will ride whatever board to race down them as fast as he can.