BILLY MORGAN
B
ILLY MORGAN IS ONE of
the most progressive riders
in modern snowboarding.
Representing Great Britain
at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics
took Billy’s snowboarding career to
a new level, but it wasn’t until he
landed the world’s first Quad Cork on a
snowboard back in April 2015 that he
really caught the attention of the global
snowboard scene. Prior to the 2015/16
winter season, we sat down with the
Red Bull athlete from Southampton
to see how life as a professional
snowboarder is treating him!
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How’s it going Billy? What have you
been up to over the summer?
This summer has pretty much just
been rehab, trying to restrengthen my
knee after the surgery I had back in
April. Since then it’s pretty much been
an endless battle with getting my knee
better.
How does the knee feel now?
Yeah it’s a lot better now. It’s been over
4 months and the strength is coming
on nicely. We’re getting there. I’ve just
got to keep going with it and put in the
work to get it right.
Glad to hear it’s on the mend. So
let’s go back in time a bit. Before
you got into snowboarding you used
to be an acrobat right? How did the
transition between the two sports
come about?
Yeah, so I was a gymnast for a bit,
and then I was an acrobat for about
ten years. I did that until I was nearly
fifteen. When I quit acrobatics, I
needed something else to fill the gap
that it left. I mean, I was doing it every
day after school and then all day on
Saturdays. It wasn’t like two sessions
a week, it was full on. It was all I did.
Acrobatics was always quite structured
and rigid. Snowboarding seemed so
unstructured, and allowed you to be
free to do whatever you want, and
that was just so appealing to me after
acrobatics.
Cool. Sounds like you made the
right choice! Where was your
local spot when you first started
snowboarding?
My main spot was Southampton
Alpine Snowsports Centre, and then
occasionally we’d go to Calshot
Activities Center, which is the smallest
slope in the UK. They would put some
rails out but it’s so short, you could
only hit one per run, so you just had to
lap it. But we had so much fun there!
Awesome. And where did you do
your seasons when you started
progressing?
I did three winter seasons in Morzine
when I first started. I didn’t go
abroad and ride on real snow until
I was seventeen. After spending so
much time on the dry slope and then
suddenly having a whole mountain
to ride, I remember thinking, ‘holy
sh*t, this is way better haha!’. So after
Morzine, I went to the states with
Westbeach for a season, and then I
joined the British Snowboard Team
and started moving around all over the
place.
But you’re still based in the UK
right? How much time will you spend
in England in an average year?
Hmmm including holidays, I reckon I
spend nine months of the year away,
unless I’m injured. If I bust myself I’ll
usually come home for a bit to heal up.
That’s pretty hectic. Does it leave
any time for sports other than
snowboarding?
Well I’ve been trying to fit more
skateboarding in over the last few
years. I’ve always had some basics but
it’s only really been the last few years
that I’ve been trying to progress. The
thing is I can’t really allow myself to
get hurt skateboarding. So when I do
skate, I try and keep it quite mellow
and don’t do anything too gnarly, but
it’s always easy to get carried away
haha. I play a lot of table tennis as
well actually. I thought to myself, ‘I
need something fun to do that I’m u
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