BIOGRAPHY
The brightest smile in snowboarding, Aspen's Gretchen Bleiler has reason to beam as one of the sport's most successful women. Her killer personality and character have exposed millions to snowboarding through modeling in magazines like Glamour, but her talent in the halfpipe speaks much louder. She earned her chops cruising on to the '06 Olympic Team and landing a silver medal. She made the Olympic team again in 2010, but it was her collection of yet another X Games gold medal in 2010 (her third) that has Bleiler looking back on a great year. Gretchen was the first female rider to perfect an inverted backside 540, known as the crippler.

GRETCHEN SAYS
The 2010 season was filled with moments where I rode to a level that I've never gone to before which was really inspiring. It also had its tough moments, but overall I learned a lot of valuable lessons and am always enjoying this life!  I'm ready to use what I've learned to move to the next level of my career, mix things up and maybe do some things that I've never done before.

FIRST TRACKS
When she was 10, she and her mom and brothers moved from Ohio to Aspen, and then to nearby Snowmass Village two years later. At her private school, located three miles from the Aspen Mountain ski area, part of the physical education curriculum allowed students out early on Wednesdays so they could ski at the nearby resorts. After four years of such, Bleiler switched to snowboarding at 14, and soon thereafter learned how to ride in a halfpipe with the Aspen Valley Snowboard Team. After graduating from Aspen High School in June 1999, Gretchen chose not to go to college so she could travel and train for the 2002 Games. She joined U.S. Snowboarding in September 2000.

OFF THE SNOW
When I'm not on snow you can find me designing my Oakley signature Gretchen Bleiler Collection, practicing yoga, hanging out with my newly adopted dog, Kota, and surfing!

No video to display at this time.

No gear to display at this time.