Arielle Townsend Gold (born May 4, 1996) is an American Olympic medalist snowboarder. In 2012, she won the

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have be ...

in the

halfpipe A half-pipe is a structure used in gravity extreme sports such as snowboarding, skateboarding, skiing, freestyle BMX, skating, and scooter riding. Overview The structure resembles a cross-section of a swimming pool, essentially two concave ...

at the FIS Junior Snowboarding World Championships, at the age of 15. The next year, she won the gold medal in the halfpipe at the FIS Snowboarding World Championships 2013, at the age of 16, becoming the second-youngest snowboarder to win a world championship. She won a

bronze medal A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receiv ...

in the superpipe at the 2013 Winter X Games XVII. In 2014, she was the youngest member of the US

Sochi Winter Olympics The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXII Olympic Winter Games (russian: XXII Олимпийские зимние игры, XXII Olimpiyskiye zimniye igry) and commonly known as Sochi 2014 (russian: Сочи 2014), was an international ...

halfpipe team, at the age of 17. She suffered a

separated shoulder A separated shoulder, also known as acromioclavicular joint injury, is a common injury to the acromioclavicular joint. The AC joint is located at the outer end of the clavicle where it attaches to the acromion of the scapula. Symptoms include no ...

right before the Olympics and was unable to compete. Competing for the US in the

2018 Winter Olympics , nations = 93 , athletes = 2,922 (1,680 men and 1,242 women) , events = 102 in 7 sports (15 disciplines) , opening = , closing = , opened_by = President Moon Jae-in , cauldron = Kim Yun-a , stadium = Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium , wint ...

PyeongChang Pyeongchang (; in full, ''Pyeongchang-gun'' ; ) is a county in the province of Gangwon-do, South Korea, located in the Taebaek Mountains region. It is home to several Buddhist temples, including Woljeongsa. It is about east southeast of Se ...

, South Korea, she won a

in the women's halfpipe event. Her older brother is Olympian snowboarder

Taylor Gold Taylor Gold (born November 17, 1993) is an American Olympian snowboarder. He competes in the halfpipe. He is a two-time U.S. Revolution Tour champion, 2013 Copper Mountain Grand Prix/World Cup champion, 2014 Burton US Open champion, and 2014 ...

Personal life

Gold is

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and was born in

Steamboat Springs, Colorado The City of Steamboat Springs is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Routt County, Colorado, United States. Steamboat Springs is the principal city of the Steamboat Springs, CO Micropolitan St ...

. Her older brother is American Olympian snowboarder

. She competed in

rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working vaq ...

s and horse jumping events before becoming involved in snowboarding. She lives in Steamboat Springs and attended

Steamboat Springs High School Steamboat Springs High School, nicknamed "Home of the Sailors," is a high school located at 45 E. Maple Street in Steamboat Springs, Colorado The City of Steamboat Springs is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populo ...

. She later transferred to the Insight School of Colorado, a full-time online public charter school that allowed her to take her classes online. Gold studied psychology at the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...

. Her father Ken Gold, a former professional moguls skier would video each of her practices. The family moved to

Breckenridge, Colorado The Town of Breckenridge is the home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Summit County, Colorado, United States. The town population was 5,078 at the 2020 United States Census. Breckenridge is the p ...

for five months every year to be closer to her competitions.

Snowboarding career

She learned to ski when she was three years old. Her older brother convinced her to switch to snowboarding when she was 7. She said: "Taylor made it look like so much fun". Their father said:

Taylor is, in many ways, responsible for Arielle’s success because he... told her: 'Look, most of the girls do things the way the other girls do. You need to do things the way the guys do. You need to grab your snowboard, you need to go big, you have style, you need to have aggression in your riding.'

She is a member of the

Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club The Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club (SSWSC) is located in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. SSWSC has produced 88 Winter Olympians, including 14 sent to the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. Some of the more well-known Olympians including 6-time Olympia ...

. Her home mountain is Mount Werner in the Park Range of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

, four miles from Steamboat Springs. Gold began competing when she was eight years old.

2010–12: Junior World Champion

In 2010, she won the Burton US Open Junior Jam halfpipe contest. In 2011, she won a silver medal at the U.S.

Revolution Tour {{Use mdy dates, date=April 2014 The Chevy Revolution Tour is a snowboarding competition series created in 2005 by U.S. Snowboarding to bridge the gap between grassroots level and elite snowboarding competitions. The sole purpose of the Chevy Rev ...

, Copper Mountain, Colorado, United States of America Snowboard and Freeski Association (USASA) National Championships. In 2012 at the Winter Youth Olympic Games in

Innsbruck Innsbruck (; bar, Innschbruck, label=Austro-Bavarian ) is the capital of Tyrol and the fifth-largest city in Austria. On the River Inn, at its junction with the Wipp Valley, which provides access to the Brenner Pass to the south, it had a p ...

, Austria, she won silver medals in

slopestyle Slopestyle is a winter sport in which athletes ski or snowboard down a course including a variety of obstacles including rails, jumps and other terrain park features. Points are scored for amplitude, originality and quality of tricks. The disci ...

and

. She won the gold medal in halfpipe at the FIS Junior Snowboarding World Championships in the

Sierra Nevada (Spain) Sierra Nevada (; meaning "mountain range covered in snow") is a mountain range in the Andalusian province of Granada in Spain. It contains the highest point of continental Spain:The highest peak in Spanish territory is Teide on the island of Tene ...

at the age of 15. For 2012, she ranked 14th on the World Snowboard Tour.

2013: World Champion

She won the

in the

at the FIS Snowboarding World Championships 2013 in Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury,

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...

, Canada, at the age of 16, the second-youngest ever to win a World Championship. Later that week after replacing the injured Gretchen Bleiler, Gold won a

in the superpipe at the Winter X Games XVII in Aspen, Colorado. She won the Burton European Open in

Laax Laax ( rm, Lags) is a municipality in the Surselva Region in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. History Laax is first mentioned c. 1290–98 as ''Lags''. Geography Laax has an area, , of . Of this area, 35.8% is used for agricultural pur ...

, Switzerland, came in second in the 2013 Grand Prix in Park City, Utah in February, and won the bronze medal at X Games Europe in Tignes, France. She ranked second on the 2013 World Snowboard Tour and also earned a place on the

U.S. Snowboarding U.S. Snowboarding, the snowboarding arm of the United States Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), is committed to the progression of snowboarding by providing athletic programs, services, and competitions for male and female athletes of all ages, ...

pro team.

2014: Olympian

Gold was the youngest member of the US 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics halfpipe team at the age of 17, and was considered a medal contender in the women's halfpipe. She was not able to compete in the qualification for the Olympic halfpipe finals, because of a separated right shoulder injury suffered on February 12, 2014, when she caught an edge at the end of the pipe during a practice run and crashed at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia, moments before the competition.

2015-17

In 2015 she finished second in the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix in Park City, Utah, third in the Burton US Open in Vail, Colorado, and fourth in the

X Games The X Games are an annual extreme sports event organized, produced and broadcast by ESPN. Coverage is also shown on ESPN's sister network, ABC. The inaugural X Games were held during the summer of 1995 in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, ...

in Aspen. In 2016 she won a silver medal in the X Games in Aspen, and a bronze medal in the X Games in Oslo, Norway. She was ranked 6th in the 2017 FIS World Cup Halfpipe Standings.

2018: Olympian

Competing for the United States in the