Tess Coady has been proving herself for years, earning heavy0hitting podium spots and dialing it all in with notable style. Despite injuries and the fickle nature of the contest scene, Tess has made it clear that she isn’t stopping any time soon. She’s been moving through the competition circuit with momentum, gaining more and more traction with every season. With the Australian season coming to an end, she’s been having fun bringing it back to the basics with local events and home mountain laps. Although the season Stateside was record breaking in duration, we still wish we were out there lapping, so we caught up with Tess on how things are going in the southern hemisphere after a fully loaded contest season.

Hey Tess, where are you right now?
Hey! I’m currently in Jindabyne in NSW for the winter down here in Aus!

How’s the season going down in Aus?
It’s pretty good, it has definitely been a bit tricky with the lack of snow, but Thredbo managed to get all their parks up and running pretty early in the season, so from that regard it’s been great!

You just took home the win at the Transfer Banked Slalom! Congrats, how was the event?
Haha, thanks! Stoked on that one. I remember watching Enni Rukajärvi win it when I was a grom and I’ve been chasing the win ever since, so it was nice to finally take it! Transfer Banked Slalom is always such a sick event. I think in Aus it’s probably the biggest core event that we have, so it’s always super nice to see everyone come together for the race, from pros to reps to micro groms. Everyone shows up hungry to take it out!

Must feel nice to throw some events like that into the mix after comp season…
Oh, hell yeah. Sometimes when you’re in the middle of the comp season, you don’t really realize how full on it all is. You just sort of get to it and try to enjoy it as much as possible, but once it’s all said and done it can be super nice to just get some chill time on the board, not really thinking about moving around to a new spot every other week. So yeah, getting events like the Transfer Banked Slalom in there can be really nice and grounding and a good reminder of why I started doing all of this!

How did comp season go this past year?
Yeah, it was good! I was actually pretty stoked on how the comp season went this past Northern Hemi season. Coming off the Olympic season, I was actually so exhausted. I definitely felt like I had put everything I had into the couple of years leading up to it, and I really felt that exhaustion for quite a few months after that season. So coming into the most recent comp season, at the start I got a couple of really average results that I was super not stoked about, but by the time X Games came around, I feel like I had started to find a bit more rhythm in my contest riding and a bit more hunger, as well, to get results I was going to walk away proud of. It really just flowed from there for me for the rest of the season. I had a good run and got some results I was super stoked on.

Are you working on anything right now to add to your comp runs?
I’m kind of just figuring it all out in my head at the moment, but definitely hoping to change it up a bit in the future!

Do you have a pre-comp run ritual?
Haha. I have some weird ones for sure. For starters, it doesn’t matter if comp or not, every morning I have to put my right sock on first, otherwise I don’t know, maybe the universe will implode, haha. During comps I don’t wash my thermals for the week of the event. I know it’s so nasty but I didn’t do it one time and I did really well and now I’m stuck in it, ha.

Haha. That is a bit nasty, but everyone has their things! Your big air bronze at World Champs contributed to an Australian record for most World Champs medals, right?
Yeah I think so! That was a cool one, definitely pretty random being out in Georgia for the World Champs; that was probably the craziest place snowboarding has taken me I think. But I was super stoked to end up on the podium there. I just missed it in slopestyle. I ended up in fourth by point nothing, so that was a bummer, but it felt good to pull it together and get up on the podium in big air.

That’s very sick, congrats. 
Cheers!

Speaking of crazy places, what’s your travel routine like?
It can be pretty crazy, that’s for sure. Normally it goes something like this: Fly overseas in January to get back on snow in Absolut Park in Austria for a couple of weeks, then the comp season kicks off around mid-January with the Laax Open followed by X Games in the USA, then there are usually a couple more events or maybe World Champs or Olympics depending on the year. But yeah, pretty much just hit the road until late March just chasing events and usually we get a couple of chill weeks in there to go ride somewhere. Then in April, try and just go hit up some of the fun, chill events, maybe some sponsor events like Hell Week or Peace Park or the Nines or something. Then fly home to Aus late April and get a couple of nice, quiet months at home in the water. Then head up to Jindabyne late July and get on snow in Thredbo for a couple of months. In October, maybe a couple of quiet weeks at home, then fly over to Austria for the Prime Park Sessions for the month of November, then maybe a world cup or two in December to start the comp season, then a couple of weeks at home for Christmas and then do it all again…haha.

Damn, that is a lot going on. After so much time in Europe, how are you enjoying the Aus season?
Oh I love it so much. Being home is always so nice. People always ask, “How is your summer?!” Which is funny ’cause you never really get summer when you are chasing winter all the time, but it’s actually so nice and always so hard to leave. Not living out of two suitcases is sooooo nice.

Anything fun planned before the season Down Under wraps up?
Yeah, Bushdoof!!! It’s our second year running Bushdoof in Thredbo, hosted by myself and Monster Energy. It’s a two-day event on the 1st and 2nd of September. The second day is a rail jam and an apres up at Thredbo. The lineup of riders is looking super heavy, so super excited for that!

What’s up for next season? Do you have any lofty goals for the future?
I think I just want to keep trying to push my riding and see where I can get to, maybe try learn a couple of new tricks. I just want to feel really good on my board and be having heaps of fun riding. 🙂