podcast
Pat Burgener is one of the best snowboarders in the world – and a successful musician. In the winter sports podcast he talks about his exciting life and also picks up the guitar.
sports show: Pat Burgener, how do you prepare for a winter season?
Pat Burgener: It’s special this year because we’re coming out of the Olympic season. After the Olympics, I focused a lot on music because it’s a new passion of mine. Otherwise, every day is training. Even though I played so many festivals, every day was fitness training.
sports show: What does your workout look like then? Walk around the stage?
Burgener: I don’t drink, mostly (laughs). I try to sleep a lot and do cardio training, go to the gym. I also skate a lot, which helps for snowboarding. Twice a week I do fitness training by the sea, go surfing with a few exercises that the athletes are sure to know.
sports show: And you’re going to the trampoline hall, aren’t you?
Burgener: I even have a trampoline in my backyard. I dug a five meter hole to set up the trampoline there and it’s my turn again and again.
sports show: You’ve already won bronze twice in the halfpipe. What are your plans for the World Cup next year?
Burgener: I started my professional career when I was 15, have been going full throttle for 10 years and only think about the result. Now wants to take away a year that I’ve wished for every year. I’d like to be able to say, I’m not going to the competition today because I don’t feel like it, or I’m going there super relaxed and do a few stylish tricks. I know it takes a year like this for me.
Because otherwise I’ll never do it again. Next year will be a transition year, with no World Cup and no Olympic Games, but then it starts again, two years: first we have the World Cup in Switzerland for the first time, that’s really important for me and the Olympic Games in Milan. Since I’m back two years in complete stress.
sports show: You mentioned music as a new passion, what does snowboarding mean to you?
Burgener: For me, snowboarding is a lifestyle. This is a sport that is not just about sport. You start with it as a child, then you become a surfer, skater or snowboarder. Your whole life changes. That’s incredible. In the summer I go surfing to Costa Rica because it’s part of the snowboarding lifestyle. It’s more than just sport, and if you approach it like that, it’s about sport, but not just about results. It’s about becoming the person you always wanted to be.
sports show: On social media you can see again and again that even during the Olympic Games you seem very easygoing, making jokes and spooks. Is it something you need to perform at your best?
Burgener: There was so much negative energy there during the Olympics. Everyone said we should boycott it because it was in China. Then still the mask because of Covid-19, vaccinations and so on. I said I’m going there and I still want to have a good time. It was an important moment for me when I saw that I started a real movement where everyone was so funny.
But I needed distance from the whole thing and also from the results. I need the funny attitude, I’ve been like that my whole life. Taking things too seriously doesn’t make sense to me because when you think back to the Olympics and you’re like, ok, I got a medal, but I don’t have good memories, then it’s worth more to me to have fun.
sports show: You wanted to have a good time, which you didn’t really have as an athlete before. When you were young you were treated as a wonder boy, you were already taking part in international competitions at the age of 13, but you were repeatedly seriously injured. Did you sometimes think to yourself: Why is it always me?
Burgener: When I look back, I see that all my injuries pushed me forward. It’s a way of life that I now want to share with other people.
Many people are afraid to portray mistakes and unachieved goals. If I hadn’t injured myself then obviously I could have done much better in snowboarding, but that would have been it. Then I would never have started my music career, never done anything on social media and so on. That’s the crazy thing about my life, after ten years of career I see the athletes who have achieved everything and now at the end of their careers don’t know what’s to come.
But I was able to build up so much during my injuries and still found a way to stay at my level in sport. So I tell a lot of people not to be afraid of hurt or failure because it leads to greater things if you have the right attitude.