Ellery Hollingsworth of Connecticut is sort of quietly making her mark on the TTR (Ticket To Ride) World Snowboarding Tour. Consider this: Ellery Hollingsworth says one of her pro snowboarding role models is Aussie Torah Bright, the world champ three years ago. Ellery Hollingsworth ranks sixth this season; Torah Bright, 22 years old, ranks 30th as she focuses more on winter sportswear fashion design.

Despite being the brightest star among pre-high school grads in women's snowboarding and the increasing opportunities for female snowboarders to make some decent money, Ellery Hollingsworth isn't even sure she wants to continue her sports career for very long. She is thinking about a career as a doctor.

Ellery Hollingsworth started on the snowboard in first grade, but it wasn't her first sport. Being a born and bred New Englander, she played hockey but says she didn't like all the collisions. In other words, the half pipe and the slope (she does both) are comparatively safe? We guess so, if you're as good as Ellery Hollingsworth. She's also a skateboarder and learning to surf.

But Ellery Hollingsworth isn't one of those young snowboard/skateboard/surf brats. She still thanks her mother for providing resources so that she can compete in the Ticket To Ride World Snowboarding Tour, and she sums up her three lessons in life as, "1. Be polite. 2. Happy. 3. Everything happens for a reason."

This shouldn't be meant to paint a totally innocent picture. When Ellery Hollingsworth was 10, on a family vacation in California, she snuck into a closed skate park with older brothers Jeb and Kyle. The cops caught them: "It wasn't funny at the time, but now we laugh." She also says she wouldn't be a world-class pro skateboarder if not for the influence of Jeb and Kyle.

Ellery Hollingsworth says her favorite high school subject is math. Even without numbers, she seems to have added up a lot of things in her young life.

Sources:
http://www.grindtv.com/athlete/Ellery_Hollingsworth/bio/
http://oakley.com/sports/snowboard/athletes/231
http://snowboardermag.com/features/news/trick-tip-backflip-ellery-hollingsworth/
http://snowboardermag.com/features/news/ellery-hollingsworth-minor-threat/

Gretchen Bleiler, a pioneer in women's pro snowboarding, explains why she aims to combat global warning by building awareness.

"I mean, if we don't have snow in the next years, I'm going to be out of a job," says Bleiler, 27, born in Toledo and one of the first women to make her mark in pro snowboarding. She now lives in Aspen, where she was won three X-Games championships in the half-pipe. This makes Gretchen Bleiler well-known among the snowboarding set, but she gained larger fame with her silver medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.

"The X Games are sort of becoming the modern day Olympics, because I think younger kids are growing up watching the X Games now, but the Olympics are the biggest event in all sports," Bleiler explains, before drawing a logical conclusion: "The X Games are the bigger competition for snowboarding, but the Olympics are the biggest competition for everybody worldwide."

Gretchen Bleiler started snowboarding at the age of 11. This was during the early 1990s, so she was aware of no female snowboarders as role models. Instead, she took inspiration from her three snowboarding brothers. But now that Gretchen is so well-established, today's girls have someone they can admire. Gretchen Bleiler fits the bill by visiting schools, and she even was interviewed by Scholastic Magazine. She's involved with the Women's Sports Foundation. To promote women in snowboarding, she has organized the season-closing Snow Angels Invitational at Aspen.

Ms. Bleiler also is a magnet for the media with her natural and sunny good looks, but sorry fellas, she's engaged to snowboarder Christopher Hotell.

Gretchen Bleiler has capitalized on her success to establishing a signature sports clothing line with Oakley, which includes everything from the snowboarding suits to the gloves. She does far more than simply endorse, initiating the design from start to finish.

Her increasing public profile also allows Gretchen Bleiler to push hard in the fight against global warming.

"I've been very athletic my entire life and have always enjoyed being outdoors, so the environment has always been very important to me," Gretchen Bleiler says. "After the Olympics, I realized I had a platform to talk about the causes I believed in, and the environment and climate change are definitely at the top of the list."

She urges her fans to visit the web site stopglobalwarming.org.

Sources:
http://www.shredbetties.com/riders/story/gretchen_bleiler/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Bleiler
http://gretchenbleiler.com/index.php/bio
http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/winterolympics/sports/index.asp?article-gbleiler