How sister's success paved way for Atkin's Olympic bronze

In 2018, as a 15-year-old, Zoe Atkin watched her big sister Izzy win Winter Olympic bronze for Team GB - and a spark was lit.

She wanted her moment on the podium. She wanted to do the same.

That fire burned for eight years until Sunday, when she did.

In winning halfpipe bronze in Livigno, Atkin became only the second British athlete to win an Olympic medal on skis.

Keeping the honour in the family, the first was her sister in the Pyeongchang slopestyle.

"She's always been my biggest inspiration, she pushed me into the sport, she was always bullying me to jump off things on the mountain," said 23-year-old Atkin.

"After watching her [win the medal] it's always been a huge goal for me.

"It's a real full-circle moment because she was here supporting me, and I was there when she won her bronze medal, so it's really special.

"Obviously I wanted to one-up her a bit but it's really special that we both have the bronze.

"My mum is claiming that she's the first parent to have two Olympic medallists for GB in the family."

Atkin had already secured a medal when she dropped into the pipe for her final run and, with the pressure off, improved her score to 92.50 - just half a point shy of the silver medal position.

China's global superstar Eileen Gu won gold, her first of these Games after two silvers, with 94.75, while compatriot Li Fanghui took silver.

Atkin's medal was the fifth for Great Britain at the Milan-Cortina Games, after three golds and a silver, equalling the team's record-best haul from 2014 and 2018.

But this was the team's most successful Winter Olympics the moment Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale secured the second of those golds in the mixed team snowboard cross exactly a week ago.

Never before had Great Britain won more than one gold at a single Winter Games.

Atkin came into her second Olympics fresh from winning X Games gold and as the reigning world champion, eager to improve on the ninth-place finish she achieved on her debut in Beijing four years ago.

She had qualified top of the standings for the final, which was postponed to Sunday morning after heavy snowfall in Livigno the previous day.

There she remained after the first run, with a score of 90.50, after Gu - the defending champion - had fallen on her opening trick.

On the second run, the roles reversed. Gu vastly improved with a 94.00, as did Li with 91.50, only for Atkin to fall on her effort.

Gu, the most decorated female Olympic freestyle skier in history, boosted her score further on her third and final run, leaving Atkin knowing she would have to be perfect to challenge for gold.

But with the medal already in the bag, Atkin was smiling at the top of the pipe as she dropped in for one last time, enjoying a pressure-free run and seemingly unbothered that the two points she gained were not enough for a higher step on the podium.

"I am so happy. I've been looking forward to this for at least the past four years and it was so overwhelming with the crowd and knowing it was the Olympics - so many emotions," she told BBC Sport.

"I was so stressed out and I was crying, and to put two runs down felt so good and the cherry on top is getting on the Olympic podium."

The Atkin sisters were born and raised in the United States by a Malaysian mother and English father, with the majority of their British family based in Surrey.

The extended Atkin family was at Livigno Snow Park on Sunday to watch on as Zoe won her medal, with Izzy telling BBC Sport it was "a huge sigh of relief".

"I'm so, so proud of her," she said. "I know how much time and effort and grit and hard work she's put into it, and to see her do a run I know she's proud of was incredible.

"It's a full-circle moment. She supported me in 2018 and now it's awesome that we get to do this together."

The top of the icy Winter Olympics halfpipe is a world away from the Californian climes of Stanford University.

And yet it is where Atkin's two worlds collide.

As an Olympic medal-winning skier - and a student at one of the United States' most prestigious colleges.

Atkin studies symbolic systems - "a mix of cognitive science, studying the brain, how it works and the mechanisms of that, combined with computer science and studying those machines," as she told BBC Sport before the Games.

Olympic halfpipes are 6.7m high, with Atkin achieving an amplitude of more than 5m during her final.

That means, should something go wrong mid-air, athletes have a near 12m drop on to pure ice, a risk Atkin had previously struggled to cope with.

"I have learned so much that has helped me so much being an athlete in an action sport. The tricks and manoeuvres that we're doing inherently have a lot of risk to them," she said.

"I've struggled with fear a lot in the past, especially when I was younger. Learning about the mechanisms of the brain has really helped me apply those learnings and new mindsets and be able to test those theories, in practice, in my sport.

"It's in those really hard moments that you show yourself what is possible and that is when you really push your limits.

"I've been able to find my power in that."