It might sound weird but it's a fact: 2014 Olympic halfpipe gold medallist Iouri Podladtchikov (SUI) has set his sights on competing at the Olympic Summer Games in four years.

The 2013 world champion with three World Cup wins under his belt stated in an an interview with Swiss newspaper NZZ that besides defending his Olympic title at the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, he wants to make it to Tokyo 2020, too.

Following the recent decision of the International Olympic Committee at the 129th IOC Session in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to add skateboarding amongst other disciplines to the Olympic sports programme the Russian born Swiss athlete sees the Tokyo Games as perfect moment to come to a full (Olympic) circle.

“It could make my Olympic story complete,” he is quoted in the online article. “I cannot stop smiling. I wanna go to Japan as a skateboarder.”

Podladtchikov has a long skateboard history – not only as it's his main summer activity and training tool to get technical tricks dialled in but also as he started skateboarding at the age of eleven, two years before he also strapped into snowboard bindings for the first time.

Podladtchikov who has always been a busy bee sees Tokyo as his chance for a slow retirement from action sports as he stated in the interview:

“I want to defend my title. But when I want to be successful, 2018 can't be the end. I can't imagine to step back from competitive sports being at my peak. I'm aiming for a slow transition.”

And while he knows that he won't have a single chance to battle for gold, silver or bronze in 2020 the 28-year-old with a big foible for photography has still high hopes to qualify for the park event.

He is therefore willing to subordinate his summer to his dream – despite all the crashes it might take to get some new tricks in store, and despite the painful arthrosis in his right ankle he is currently fighting with a stem cell therapy.

Source: fis-ski.com