“It is very hard to move ahead when you’re in a dream state; it’s like everyone talks about that little cloud that is going to go poof, and it is exactly how it is.” – Iouri Podlatchikov
The first time I met Iouri Podladtchikov, it was early afternoon. We met in SoHo, on the fifth floor of a drab office building at Broadway and Houston in New York. He was in between talk shows and magazine interviews. Less than two weeks before, he won gold at the Sochi Winter Olympics. But rather than wax poetic of his ascent to the top of podium, he talked about what he wanted to talk about: style (as in street and high fashion), philosophy, and Shaun White. For the latter, there was a reverence that was both charming and bold — he felt akin to the once unbeatable king who had long since traded shaggy red locks for a goatee and close crop, and snow pants for skinny jeans, subsequently falling out of favor with much of snowboarding’s “core.” Shaun was not comfortable with the fame and fortune he had grown into as a snowboarder… he wanted more. And from the outset, so does Iouri.
Iouri is a snowboarder, and proud of it. He wants to win; he wants to be the best. And he is damn good at what he does — he followed up his gold in Sochi with a Bronze at the 2015 X Games in Aspen. But that doesn’t define Iouri Podladtchikov.
So when he broke his left ankle towards the beginning of the 2014-2015 season, mere months after being crowned champion in Russia, and found himself bound to a hospital bed in St. Moritz for several months, his thoughts transcended simply getting back on the slopes: “The fall comes by itself — it is something that comes naturally. I’ve had similar feelings before in a smaller way where I felt really amazing, but at the same time that feeling great and nothing’s wrong kind of feeling always stops me right there, for some reason it always shakes me when it happens. In that moment, you’re always aware: what’s going to happen now?”
