Snowboarding Update Going Into Qualifiers for the Winter Olympics 2026:
In 2021, my Dad passed away where I took two years off from competitive snowboarding in the halfpipe to focus on my career outside of snowboarding. In 2024 season, I made a nation change to American Samoa where during that time I had to wait for the approval from FIS for my nation change which occurred in June 2024. I had an honorable release with good standing from US Ski & Snowboarding Association and I am very excited to represent my Polynesian ancestry being with American Samoa! In the 2025 season which is an Olympic Qualifying season, I had to build my point count with FIS and World Snowboard Federation with WSPL Rankings from scratch. It is very challenging! It is not uncommon for it to take 3 years for women to qualify for the World Cups. I kept fighting, determined to make it happen during the 2025 season where I am now qualified for the World Cups that start in December.
I have not had steady coaching since 2019 where it has been very challenging with the halfpipe coaches shortage. Though I am relentless and I have and never will give up on myself where I had a breakout season! I had three podiums this season and went to most of these contests without a coach and struggled to find a coach. At times my friends from slopestyle and big air helped me by having their coach go to my contests when it was required at certain contests for me to have a coach. I was lucky that their coach happened to have the halfpipe certification and even though they typically do not coach halfpipe they did it any way because they wanted to see me succeed. I have spent most of the 2025 contest season changing to a new place to stay at every 1 to 4 nights with the longest I stayed in the same place being 4 days. It is expensive where I need to train at in snowboarding and it is one of the few halfpipes in the world. During the winter I base out of Laax, Switzerland to train. During the 2025 season, I had to travel everywhere for contests spending most of my time at the Zurich Airport. I had to learn how to speak German with my current level being A1. I have spent most of the past season qualifying and compared to the past two seasons in Switzerland during the winter, I finally felt like I blended in more this past season. Compared to 2018, when I first arrived in Switzerland being Emily in Switzerland fast forward many years later and I have grown to fit in with the Swiss where I now like structure and order more which has felt very rewarding.
The journey has been very exciting! The International Olympic Committee provided me with a Milano Cortina 2026 Scholarship to help me with my coaching and training costs where I am very appreciative to be 1 of the 400 athletes in selection across all winter sports for this Scholarship! I am very grateful to be a part of the Milano Cortina 2026 Scholarship recipients. I am lucky to be a recipient of the Airbnb Milano Cortina 2026 Travel Grant through Airbnb & The International Olympic Committee where Airbnb will be providing support credits for training as well as competition for some of my contests this upcoming contest year. I hope to be the first Polynesian snowboarder and a part of the few Polynesian athletes to ever go to the Olympic Games and will have a very busy 2025/2026 season working on qualifying! This will not be an easy mission but I am absolutely determined to be one of the Top 25 snowboarders in the world at the Winter Games debuting my new run! Mahalo nui loa for all that have helped me qualify for the World Cups this season and have supported me by telling me I can do it!
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