Gretchen Bleiler - Sexy Athletes in Beijing Olympics 2008

USA - Snowboarding


You might not guess it to look at her, but young Gretchen is the big name in female snowboarding. When she’s not tearing up half-pipes, she likes looking pretty, playing with her hair, and mini-golf. At a guess, anyway.

Gretchen aspired to compete in the Olympic Games from a very young age, and found her passion in snowboarding at age 11 (1992).[4] She has been riding ever since, became professional in 1996 and is currently recognized as a role model and pioneer in the sport.[5] Among her accomplishments, Gretchen jump-started the invert revolution for female riders as the first to land a Crippler 540 in competition, and won more halfpipe competitions in 2003, 2005 and 2006 than any other female snowboarder.[2] In the pre Olympic season she won four of the five US Olympic halfpipe qualifiers and is also a three time X Games gold medalist, most recently winning the superpipe at Winter X Games XII.

In 2003, she was a U.S. snowboard Grand Prix champion, a U.S. Open of snowboarding champion, and a Triple Crown of Snowboarding champion.

Bleiler, who barely missed qualifying for the 2002 Winter Olympics due to a tiebreaker, won a silver medal in the women's halfpipe at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Starting in 2007, Gretchen expanded her career into snowboard and outerwear design, through Oakley and K2 Snowboarding, designing her own signature outerwear line for Oakley, and participating in the K2 Alliance, which develops and tests women's products, as well as working on the graphics for several K2 Boards. In 2008, she helped to create a new all-female invitational superpipe competition at Snowmass called the Snow Angels Invitational.

When she is not competing, Gretchen enjoys surfing, mountain biking, interior design and fashion.[10] Gretchen is also active in several environmental organizations, including the Aspen Snomass Save Snow campaign, and stopglobalwarming.org.