Lyon Farrell competing in 2019 in Atlanta. Photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images/AFP
With an average age of 20 in the NZ Winter Olympic team, Lyon Farrell is probably considered over the hill in snowboarding years for a first Winter Olympics.
At 27, Farrell is three year's older than the next oldest members of the 17-strong team, which has been confirmed for next month's Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
Farrell achieved a long held dream when his selection in the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle and Big Air disciplines was confirmed on Friday.
Mentally, Farrell said he felt like a 20-year-old.
"Just staying in it, riding with a bunch of 19-year-olds ...I'm still learning new tricks and giving these young guys a run for their money," Farrell said.
Farrell grew up in Maui, Hawaii but first learned to ski at Coronet Peak in Queenstown with his parents and siblings.
His Mom was American, and his Dad a Kiwi. His grandparents live in Arrowtown and Farrell spent a lot of his childhood in the South Island.
He switched to snowboarding, following in his big brothers footsteps and entered his first competition in 2011.
He first started training with the New Zealand team in 2014 when he was just 15, then got the opportunity to ride with the USA team.
Farrell was with the US team from 2015 to 2022 but missed out on the last Olympics after tearing his ACL in the lead-up and thought that dream might be over.
Things were very different in 2014 when no New Zealand male athletes were sent to the Sochi Winter Olympics that year.
"So that conversation was never really there, there wasn't really a structured team around slopestyle riding...I didn't really see it as something that could happen.
"And then 2018 was when Zoi [Sadowski-Synnott] and Nico [Porteous] really started crushing it and I was like whoa all the guys that I'd been snowboarding with when I was 15-16 years old are doing amazing, I'd love to see what's going on."
New Zealand had its most successful Winter Olympic Games at Beijing 2022, where Kiwi athletes claimed two gold medals and a silver.
Sadowski-Synnott made history, winning New Zealand's first Winter Olympic gold medal in Snowboard Slopestyle, alongside a silver in Big Air. She also won a Big Air bronze medal at PyeongChang 2018 and is off to her third Olympics next month.
Farrell had worked with Sean Thompson, Sadowski-Synnott's coach, when he was as young as 13. He finished second in the Snowboard Halfpipe at the 2014 Junior World Championships under Thompson.
Four year's ago Farrell started thinking about switching his allegiances back to New Zealand.
"That friendship and connection I had with the Kiwi team was still super strong and at the time it made the most sense to go back to where I started ...really paying homage to the place that I learnt how to snowboard."
Farrell said he didn't want to look back when he eventually retired and wonder if he could have been a better snowboarder.
"Didn't really have to do with the Olympics, it more had to do with could I reach my full potential as an athlete. When I started to look at it I saw that the people I was riding with back in 2014 had created something incredible and that was what I wanted to be a part of."
Zoi Sadowski-Synnott has been an inspiration to Lyon Farrell. Photo: Miha Matavz / www.mihamatavz.com
He said a big drawcard was to work with coaches Tom Willmott and Thompson again.
"I believe that they are the best in the world and that the New Zealand team was the best place I could possibly be, so I chose to step away from the US team and go where what I thought was better and I feel it continues to show me that it is."
After watching a new generation of New Zealand snowboarders emerge, Farrell said he felt lucky to just be involved.
"They've kind of lifted me to a level now where I feel like I'm not just a good Kiwi but I'm good on the world stage and I can actually do better than I probably ever have before."
Growing up, professional sport was a part of Farrell's household.
His mother Angela Cochran was a professional windsurfer for a couple of decades and still competes, so it was no surprise that Farrell ended up competing in an extreme sport.
"I think it was kind of unavoidable being that my Mum was in a freestyle kind of sport where flipping and spinning and pushing yourself was part of the programme."
Cochran, who still lived in Maui, competed against New Zealand Olympic medallist Barbara Kendall in the 1990s and 2000s.
The Windsurfing Hall of Famers were still great friends.
"Maui was kind of the mecca of windsurfing and she did a lot of racing and wave sailing with Barbara, so Barbara was kind of my main connection whenever I was in the North Island flying through to see my grandparents in the South Island I'd always be with Barbara and her family, it's pretty cool to have that connection.
"I don't windsurf but I picked up a couple of other wind sports along the way, little bit of winging, little bit of stand up paddle, downwind foiling, all sorts of random stuff when I have time in the summer."
The Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games would take place from February 6-22 across iconic Italian alpine venues.
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