Zoe Gillings, Britain’s No 1 Olympic Snow Sports athlete finished the most successful season of her career on Friday when she ended the 2011/12 season finishing on the podium in 3rd place at the World Cup Snowboard Cross Finals in Valmalenco, Italy.
 
In the last six months Zoe has competed in all seven World Cup competitions and the prestigious X Games in Colorado, she has reached the semi final in every one of the eight competitions and reached the final in five of them, including the X Games.  Following Fridays podium Zoe has now finished the 2011/12 season ranked 6th in the World.
 
Zoe has now recorded 7 World Cup podiums in her career to date – the most of any British snow board athlete ever.
 
What has made this season even more extraordinary is that since Zoe’s entire Olympic program funding was cancelled at the end of last season, Zoe turned entrepreneur in order to fund her Olympic program.
 
Eleven months ago, Zoe launched www.IsleofDeals.com, a major discount daily deals website in the Isle of Man.  This has since become the Islands largest website of its kind.
 
At only 26yrs of age and as Britain’s No 1 Olympic snowboarder, with her only business experience limited to dealing with personal sponsors, in just 11 months, Zoe launched IsleofDeals.com, she has featured over 230 businesses on her website, sent those businesses over ?125,000 in revenue and over 14,000 customers, saved Manx consumers over ?300,000 and has run this business from around the globe along side her Olympic snowboard program.  Due to the immediate success of IsleofDeals.com Zoe has just employed her first ever full time employee on the Isle of Man.
 
Zoe commented on this season, “Twelve months ago when the funding was cancelled I was left with nothing, my only real option being retirement. I always had my extremely loyal sponsors which was awesome – BMW, Pokerstars, Optimal Payments and Isle of Man Sports Aid but I needed to top up the support. I’ve always wanted to run my own business so this was the perfect opportunity. IsleofDeals.com was born and together with my sponsors I haven’t looked back since, I love it”
 
Zoe is now in the final stages of launching her second major business, www.ZGCityDeals.com, this is the same concept as IsleofDeals but Zoe is expanding her market launching in Leeds and San Francisco at the same time.
 
Zoe is now heading into territory no other British Olympic snowboard athlete has been before, with less than 2 years to go before the next Winter Olympics in Sochi and at only 26yrs of age Zoe is now in a perfect position to have a realistic chance at bringing home the Olympic Gold medal, and she is doing this while running a successful business career.
 
Two weeks ago UK Sport announced a funding award to Zoe’s governing body, British Ski and snowboard which is a massive boost to winter sports in the UK and will assist British snow sports athletes towards Sochi.
 
“The investment by UK Sport is absolutely awesome, a great deal of work has been done between UK Sport and British Ski and Snowboard which will help snow sports in the UK greatly, thank you so much” commented Zoe.
 
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