Gillings Fit and Ready for the USA.

15/11/11

Zoe Gillings, the British no 1 Olympic snowboarts athlete from the Isle of Man is just about to finish her on snow training in

Hintertux, Austria, before heading out to the first World cup SBX

competition of the 2011/12 season on December 15th in Colorado, USA.

Zoe commented, "Since losing UK Sport World class funding last season

due to politics right at the top level of British sport, it's been a

difficult 12 months not knowing where I would get the money from or if

I would have an Olympic training program at all - all I knew was that

I had to do it myself  ... which I have done and continue to do so."

Zoe turned entrepreneur in may last year launching her first major

business success story, www.IsleofDeals.com which is now the Isle of

Man's leading daily deals website.  In just over 6 months, zoe has

saved Isle of Man consumers over £200,000 and sent over 8000 customers

to over 100 featured businesses. At the same time as running

IsleofDeals.com, Zoe has been training in the gym daily while also securing herself the most

comprehensive World Cup snowboard program of her career to date.  

Zoe's next major business expansion will be in Leeds at the start of

the new year. 

Zoe continued, "I've been training in Hintertux now for 6 weeks

and I've got 2 more left, it's been absolutely brilliant training for an extended amount of time compared to

the 4 days training I got last season! My Olympic training program now consists

of a world cup coach, assistant coach, physiotherapist and technician

- this is the first time in my career I've had access to so many

services all of which are required at the top level of competition."

It's not all been plain sailing though, Zoe suffered a nasty head

injury on thursday cracking her helmet in training after which for 3

hrs zoe had a short term memory of about 1 1/2 minutes. Zoe commented,

"it's just one of those things, it happens, my headache has nearly

gone and I hope to get back on snow late next week, at least I

provided my team some amusement as I kept asking the same questions

over and over again for 3 hours!"

Zoe also received some excellent news last month when she signed a

major new sponsorship agreement with the Isle of Man based world wide

payments provider Optimal payments. "IsleofDeals.com is going really

well but I still wouldn't be able to continue without my long

standing major sponsors who are invaluable, these are BMW,

Pokerstars, IOM Sport Aid, IOM Steam Packet and now Optimal Payments."

commented zoe.

Zoe will be flying to England on the 22nd November for the evening as

her newest sponsor, Optimal payments, have invited her to attend the

Optimal Payments VIP cocktail party at the ice bar in central London.

Zoe will then be flying out to Colorado, USA on the 10th December for her

first competition of the 2011/12 season which she is looking forward to greatly