Athletes in Sochi are garnering support from all corners of the Internet. A fairly anonymous tweet sent early Wednesday morning wished luck to the women of Olympic halfpipe.
The sender, Nicola Thost, has just 102 followers. The fraction is spare change in social media's currency -- hardly worth mentioning compared to the follower counts of defending medalists Hannah Teter (31.5K), Torah Bright (135K) and Kelly Clark (17.2K).
Without Twitter or Instagram to share it, the 36-year-old has worn the same boots and numbered bib as Clark, Teter and Bright will don in the finals. She's stood at the top of a similarly crappy pipe, too.
..let's goooo,Girls !! Don't let a crappy pipe wreck your show! #halfpipe #gold #goodluck #allin http://t.co/qzLRx98mli
— Nicola Thost (@NicolaThost) February 12, 2014
At 20, Thost's performance in Nagano earned the first gold medal ever awarded in women's halfpipe at the Olympics. She didn't have a helmet on. Her jacket was black and nondescript. She rode a Nitro board in a field of Burtons and Rides.
The German's legacy was plagued by injury while the sport exploded and grew around her. Thost eventually had her own name on a Burton board, but a love for perfect powder days was stored away and replaced by the drive to keep up, and to keep winning.
After Nagano, and especially after the Salt Lake City Games in 2002, the free-spirited community of snowboarding was a massive commercial industry.
Thost settled for an 11th-place finish in Salt Lake City, and an 18-year-old Kelly Clark wore gold around her neck on the podium -- the first major triumph of her young career couldn't have been any bigger.
A self-described non-competitor, Thost opened up to a young Austrian filmmaker about the ride after becoming her sport's first Olympic champion, how she reclaimed snowboarding's magic, and how she's sharing it with kids in her new venture, Sprungbrett.
Watch the full eight-minute version of All In:
Nicola Thost ALL IN movie from Nicola Thost on Vimeo.
