NZSnowboard.com - The home of New Zealand Snowboarding

22nd July 2008

After liasing with Koia for a month on getting this interview done, we finally caught up over a couple of coffees before I flew out of Queenstown. The first impressions of Jake as a person was a pretty mellow, chilled out guy who was thankful to have a profession which consisted of doing something he loved.

Picking me up in his rather sweet new Audi, I thought to myself, this guy has gotta have a bit of motivation and is obviously doing something right. After a lengthy chat it didn't take long to realize why. He recently won day one of the Cardrona Games for Big Air, but apart from his talent and style on hill, Koia's attacking life in his own way, with his own kiwi attitude.




So Koia, you've been back in NZ for a few months now, where did you go and what did you get up to for your Northern Hemi season?

I flew to Vancouver, early December, spent about 2 weeks riding, getting my feet back. Then I flew to China for the Nanshan Open. I was there for about a week checking out what China has to offer. Then it was back to Vancouver and the next day I drove to Cali to start filming. I pretty much just traveled a lot between Canada and America and I made a quick trip to Norway for the Arctic Challenge.


Heck, I heard your sled got snaked in Canada!?

Yeah that kinda sucked. So I got to Vancouver, bought a new truck and went to pick up my snowmobile from a mechanics yard where I'd stored it till I got back and found that mine and a couple others had been stolen over summer. I had to have one to work and having no insurance I just had to go buy another one, that set me back like 7k, fucken Squamish crack heads!


Having gained recognition across the globe, whats the difference between making it in NZ and making it in an international level?

A lot I guess but I don't really care about the whole making it thing so much anymore, to me I've achieved way more than I ever thought I would. I'm really happy and lucky to be where I'm at today.


What are you looking forward to for this coming season and summer?

This season I'm really looking forward to both of the Stylewars events, Australia will be good cause I love riding with my friends there. Other than that I'll be doing both the Australian and NZ Opens and working closely with Red Bull and Snowpark building some different features to film on. Hopefully the guys at Transworld will be coming out for the Hemisphere Challenge as well.


You've said before that you compete here in NZ because there isn't a whole lot else to do., do you like competing?

I like contests if its all about the riders, if they listen to our feedback and try and make everything fun and safe for us. I hate events that are all about TV, don't let you practice and just generally don't listen or care about the guys that are making their event happen! I do the events here because I want to and if I didn't the season could be pretty boring.


A lot of people define success differently. In your opinion, what has been your biggest achievement?

Doing what I love doing for a jobif you can even call it that. As long as I'm always getting better and making moves, I feel like I'm constantly achieving.


Your riding style has been described as smooth, solid and with a lot of stompability. A bit of a silent destroyerWhat do you think is the key to your riding?

I try and keep up with what's new in snowboarding so I don't get left behind. I don't know, I'm just stoked if people like my snowboarding.


You've talked before about the difference between Aussie and NZ snowboarding. How do you think the NZ snowboard industry compares to Aussie's and on a global scale?

I hate to say it but I think there's a lot more talent coming out of Australia right now. I don't know why, it could be because they have a lot more financial freedom and can travel a lot more than the new up coming kids in New Zealand.


Could the NZ industry be bettered?

Always. There was no snowboard union or anything like that to help me out, I made the most important decisions by myself. I'm not really stressed on what everyone else is doing for the industry because in a way I'm doing my part and trying to open doors for New Zealand snowboarding.


Thanks/shout outs/meandering comments.

Thanks to Oakley, Endeavor, Redbull, Flux, Grenade, Celsius, Axis, Snowpark, Neff. And Christel for typing out this interview xox