The parents of Kiwi snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott's have praised their daughter's "nerves of steel" after she won a second medal of the 2022 Winter Olympics - this time a silver in the big air competition.
The 20-year-old became New Zealand's first Winter Olympian gold medallist last week when she won the slopestyle.
Sadowski-Synnott led after the first two rounds but failed to land her final jump and was edged out by defending champion Austrian Anna Gasser at the last minute.
She told Checkpoint that she put way too much speed into her final run, which lost her the gold - but she had to bring her best trick to the Olympics.
Despite missing out on gold, second place completed her set of medals after winning bronze last time around at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
"I'm super stoked and can't really believe it," Sadowski-Synnott told Checkpoint.
"Winning two medals in one [Olympic] Games, but I had a pretty sick team behind me and couldn't have done it without them."
She said she was glad she gave it a crack - and was stoked to stand on the podium with two of her friends.
She said the key to her outstanding run at this year's Olympics had been worrying about her performance rather than the result.
"It means a lot to me - growing up snowboarding and dreaming of going to the Olympics, and now walking away with two medals. I'm just so happy and proud of where my snowboarding has gone and yeah, hope I made my family proud.
"I just told myself to take care of the snowboarding first and let the performance and snowboarding speak for itself. And then whatever result I got, just as long as I was stoked with how I was riding, I'd be happy," she said.
Her parents Sean Synnott and Robyn Sadowski watched on in Wanaka, saying the watch was "bloody stressful" as always.
"[We're] so happy for her and what she's done and so happy for the rest of the girls," Sadowksi said.
"[I'm] totally just in awe of what she's pulled off, she's got a full medal cabinet now and hopefully she's been an inspiration to a lot of other young people. Male or female get out there, believe your dreams, you can make it happen," Synnott said.
The sheer size of the big air event course left the parents bewildered when they saw it in person at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games, Sadowski said.
"If I stood at the top of that, I don't even think I could stand, my legs would shake let alone go down it, because it's something like 16 storeys high... it's crazy," she said.
The pair put Sadowski-Synnott's poise down to "nerves of steel" and a whole lot of practice.
Aside from media attention, the silver medallist's parents said the only thing they knew that scared Zoi was the chance of missing a competition.
"What scares her is the possibility that she might not get the opportunity to do a competition that she wants to do," Synnott said.
Sadowski said her message to Zoi after the event was to enjoy her freedom as she looks ahead to her upcoming Natural Selection Tour freeride event.
