Txema Mazet-Brown was on the slopes before he could walk.
The French Alps are the scene of some of the snowboarding star's earliest memories, where he was introduced to skiing as a toddler by his father.
It is no surprise then that at the age of 19, he has already begun to carve out a reputation as one of the brightest names within British winter sport, having twice won the Big Air crown at the European Cup, along with the Big Air world champion title at the Snowboarding Junior World Championships in 2024.
“My dad brought me into it at a super young age on the skis in the French Alps, in-between his legs actually,” said Mazet-Brown, who was raised in New Zealand.
“I don't even think I could walk by then. “He had always skied and snowboarded and I guess he thought the time had come for me to try it. I tried snowboarding at nine years old, and it was a million times better than skiing.
“I then started competing in New Zealand two to three years later, and that's when I realised I could take this further.
“Being super young, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my future, but I knew snowboarding was fun and I got talent ID’d by New Zealand at around 12 years old and then went on camps overseas to train and to get better.
“I started competing at the level below World Cups, and everything kept progressing and I attended the junior world champs in Switzerland in 2022 and from then on, I kept progressing and kept progressing.
“I wake up in the morning and I’ll be like ‘I want to go’ and that’s why I snowboard. The competition gives me a spark.
“Every time you have to be clutch and put it down in the moment, it’s way different to just riding on the slopes.”
Born on the island of Réunion to a French father and British mother, Mazet-Brown has already crisscrossed the globe several times over.
But it was on the slopes of Mount Ruapehu in New Zealand - where he emigrated to with his family at the age of three - where he honed his craft, later going on to compete for the Oceanic nation at the 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games.
Mazet-Brown reflected: “Being brought up in many different places and visiting a bunch of places and being part of a bunch of things kind of grows on you as a person, as you learn a lot from every single experience.
“Especially growing up in New Zealand, people are super helpful towards sports, especially in school. I know in other countries it’s quite hard to compete a lot in sport at school but New Zealand. if you do sports, it’s better so that has helped a lot in deciding to take it further or not."
Placings both in the World Cup and at the World Championships contribute to earning a quota place at Milano Cortina 2026.
Having visited the UK to see his mother's relatives several times, the snowboarding prodigy now has his sights set on representing Great Britain at next year's Olympic Winter Games.
He added: “Being young and growing up, we tried to visit the UK every few years, I have quite a a lot of family there.
“My mum’s British and I had been spending more and more time in Britain and with an Olympic cycle coming up, it was pretty intense needing to find the right pathway for myself and my future.
“It’s really important and the Olympics has been a goal since around four years ago so I’ve been building up to that.“Reaching the Olympics would be an amazing feat. I think it takes a lot of dedication and these past few years have been way more intense than before.
“Everyone is trying to hustle to make the Olympics and doing it under the GB flag would make me so proud.”
Sportsbeat 2025