The following article was originally printed in the October 2025 Issue of Slush. To get more articles and subscribe, click here.
British snowboarders are few and far between, and we can assume that few work as hard as Maisie Hill. From learning to ride on the dry slopes of England, to cutting her teeth in the parks of France before, more recently, coming back from an agonizing injury at LAAX, this Olympic hopeful knows what it takes to get things done.
What have you been up to recently? How's your summer been?
It's been pretty good. I was going on the airbag a little bit in the beginning in Europe. And then I flew to Australia and I've been living in a van in Australia for like three weeks.
How did you get into snowboarding growing up in England? Can’t imagine there are too many resorts there.
No, there's no snow at all. When I was like nine or 10 my dad for some reason got into snowboarding, and he couldn't snowboard either. So, we were both Jerry's. But there's a dry slope where we used to live so I kind of learned on that. I was on that a little bit, picked it up there and then my dad wanted to retire and move away from England, he was tired of England. So we moved to the French Alps when I was like 10 or 11. And then I just snowboarded there.
I don't know if this is an ignorant question about just being British, but what's the most British thing about you?
When I moved to France, I was kind of bullied a little bit for being English, and I really hated that part of me because I wanted to fit in and I wanted to be French. So, I tried to get that completely out of me which is kind of a shame. But now that I'm a bit older and I don't live in France anymore and I'm not getting bullied by French kids [laughs], I've kind of gone back to my English roots a little bit. But I don't really know.There's not really that much about me apart from I like tea—English tea. I'm drinking it right now.
You're coming back from an injury, is that right?
Yeah. I had a really big crash like two and a half years ago, but I'm back from that now. It was a pretty nasty one though. I broke my pelvis in half and lacerated my liver and broke my spine and my ribs and brain bleed and all that.
What happened?
It was a really weird feature at the LAAX Open. I slipped off a rail, and it was one you didn’t want to slip off because if you did, you’d crash straight into an ice wall. So, yeah, that happened. But I got back on my board as soon as possible. There was never a doubt in my mind about stopping snowboarding. My only thought was, when can I get back on my board? Even when the surgeon said there was a possibility I might not be able to walk, I was like, fuck, I really, really, really want to go snowboarding again right now. I was eager, and I went hard with the rehab. I had to move back to England because the British team was funding it. Since I had never really lived there before, I had no friends, no one apart from my mom and my family. So I didn’t hang out with anyone. I just went to the gym six days a week, and that was my life for nine months. I learned how to train, which was pretty sick because before then I had no clue.
Recovery went well though?
Getting back on board went really well in the beginning. It felt like I’d never even stopped snowboarding. But then, maybe four months in, mentally everything got really scary. I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do. My brain kept saying, nah, you’re gonna hurt yourself, you can’t do this. That was tough because I had come back from my injury and I was fine, and then all of a sudden a couple months in it was, oh wait, no, you can’t do it. It didn’t make sense—this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. That fear should have shown up a couple months earlier, not now. It was really tough, and I was pushing hard to get through it.
How did you get over that?
I honestly don't know. I just went to war every single day and I probably should have had more time off. But I really powered through it. I learned so much about myself in every single aspect. I started working with a sports psychologist more recently and she's changed the way I ride. She's changed everything for me. So that's been a big part of it as well. And just admitting that I'm scared instead of trying to pretend I'm not. Just admitting that I'm scared and working with it instead of against it.
What's next for you? What's on the horizon?
I'm trying to qualify for the Olympics. That would be sick if I could do that. But it's not the end of the world if I don't because there's so much more to snowboarding, and I don't want it to be all about that. Still, it's consuming me quite a lot at the moment because I'm not at the top of the rankings, so it would be stupid to just be chill about it right now. I have to really give it everything.
Any shout outs or thank yous?
Yeah, I wanna shout out to Tom Pelley, the legend. He’s doing the right thing for snowboarding.
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