Arielle Gold Makes 2018 U.S. Olympic Team January 31 2018

Arielle Gold will be representing the U.S. in South Korea this winter for the 2018 Olympic Games.  She will be heading to South Korea with the momentum of her 2nd Place Finish at the X-Games last weekend.

This is an article from Steamboat Today Newspaper about what boards Arielle rides and some of the history of the work she has done with Unity Snowboards.

Arielle Gold (halfpipe snowboarding)

There are plenty of giants in the snowboard industry, but Steamboat Springs halfpipe snowboarder Arielle Gold gets her boards from a relative shrimp, at least in terms of market share.

Gold's now a two-time Olympian, having made the team in 2014 and again this season.

In terms of riding, she said she's found exactly what she's looking for.

Gold rides the 152 centimeter Origin board from Unity Snowboards, a small 1,000-board-per-year company that's been hand building boards in Summit County for more than 20 years. They still do today out of the corner of a two-story warehouse in Silverthorne.

For Gold, it was about finding the right fit in Unity's line. She tried a larger men's board and the size worked well enough but it proved stiff for her.

The women's boards, meanwhile, proved a little too soft.

So, her custom snowboard supplier built her a custom snowboard.

"The outside is the men's board, but the actual core is a women's core," Gold said. "It's a little softer, a little more flexible. I tried his men's board, and it felt like it was a little too much for me, a little hard to turn."

She's ridden Unity boards to the podiums of some of the biggest events in her sport, including a second-place finish at Winter X Games Aspen, and she rode one in the most recent Warren Miller flick, "Line of Descent."

She gets two new boards every fall and doesn't plan to switch up anything before arriving in Pyeongchang, South Korea, for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

She'll ride the same two boards that got her onto the U.S. Olympic Team.

The board: Made in Silverthorne, Gold's board is a custom-made version of the 152 Origin with a full length aspen and maple wood core. Built to shine in the park and pipe, it's symmetrical in shape and flex. $545.00, unitysnowboards.com.