Freeskier Grete Eliassen tops ESPN Best Female in Action Sports poll
American-Norwegian freeskier Grete Eliassen has received the most number of votes in ESPN’s Best Female in Action Sports poll.
Voting remained opened between March 19 and April11, during which action sports enthusiasts voted feverishly for their favourite action sports athletes with the intended motivation of making them the winner.
Among the many categories of polls and brackets set up by ESPN was the poll for the most notable female athletes in ESPN. The options included the likes of five-time Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Women’s World Champion Stephanie Gilmore, her
fellow surfer Coco Ho, skaters Mimi Knoop and Leticia Bufoni, snowboarder Jess Kimura.
The poll attracted 54,166 votes, 64 percent of which went to Eliassen, thus making her a winning by a comprehensive margin.
The freeskier was surprised at managing to finish well above the top athlete sports female athletes and made no effort to hide her surprise and excitement.
She said that once she was informed about being in a bracket by her brother and that she was losing, she took to social media and got her family, friends and fans involved.
“I was totally surprised. My brother told me I was in a bracket and I was losing, so I put some stuff on my social media sites and called my family and started some momentum. It just carried on through and I won. To be on the same level as Travis Rice is
pretty cool. I couldn't have done it without the fans. My Facebook followers don't feel like random strangers anymore. It feels like a team,” she admitted during an exclusive interview with ESPN.
Eliassen has gained prominence in action sports, especially after putting on a sensational performance to clinch bronze medal in Freeskiing Slopestyle at Winter X Games 2011 at Aspen, Colorado, losing the top two podium places to Kaya Turski and Keri Herman.
She tore her ACL last year and was unable to compete in the most recent season, but the Norwegian-American freeskier is all fired up to hit the slopes and halfpipe again.
With the Winter Olympics not too far away, she would surely be looking to build some momentum by participating in as many freestyle skiing competition as possible and trying to make a solid impact, if not win, in as many of them as possible.
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