ASHWAUBENON (NBC 26) — 44 years old and making his fifth appearance at the Olympics.
NBC 26 caught up with Iron River, Michigan native, Olympic gold medalist snowboarder Nick Baumgartner who departed Wednesday morning from Austin Straubel Airport Green Bay with his final destination being Cortina, Italy for what might be his final appearance in the Olympics.
“It's wild to be able to have another opportunity at this,” he said. “it's crazy,and to think that I'm still doing this,what,21 years later from when I started this journey, it's quite awesome.”
Hear from Baumgartner about his Olympic journey!
Baumgartner says normally he doesn’t feel pressure, but this year was different, because he qualify until last week.
“My family, we have 20 people coming over there to watch the games and they had all their accommodations, everything booked,” Baumgartner said. “The only thing that they needed was for me to make the team.”
He says it never gets old to represent what he believes is the greatest country in the world.
“I've been to 40 countries all over the world and still the best part of my trips is coming back home here to the US,” said the gold medalist in snowboard cross. “I wear that flag with pride.”
The 44-year-old will begin competition on February 12 and while his goal is to win his first individual gold medal, he says to get any medal at his age would make a statement.
“My community's been behind me from day one and to take them on this journey one more time and to really, man,it would be amazing to bring it back, run it back,be able to go,have the parade again,everyone come in and,and share in all the excitement would be pretty cool," he said.
