Champion Q&A: Nick Baumgartner
| 10 November 2009
From being an all-state wrestler to dominating the rollers and bank turns, Nick Baumgartner (Iron River, MI) has charged the ranks of the world of snowboardcross competition. But, even with a World Championship bronze and a World Cup win in his arsenal, Baumgartner can't wait to get back on snow and keep up the momentum as he looks to be Vancouver Bound. U.S. Snowboarding recently sat down with Baumgartner to ask about medals, motors and his mini-me.
Well it's pretty sweet being that it was my first World Championships. That really meant a lot to me, but I don’t think it was my biggest. My gold medal I took at Lake Placid in my first World Cup win, I still like that one a little bit better. But definitely the bronze at World Championships was not something to shake a stick at.
I feel super confident especially since all my technique is getting a lot more sound since I came in to the World Cup. There's a lot of confidence I just have to keep working as hard as I can but definitely I feel a lot better going into the Olympics with the last two years under my belt.
I grew up with three older brothers and competed with my older brother all the time so everything I did was hard and as fast and hard as you can to earn that respect and I guess I carried it into every sport I did. I mean no ones gives you gifts to get where you are you are going to have to work as hard as you can at everything you do.
I'm smashing up derby cars and riding my mountain bike a lot.
I race in a couple of demolition derbies every year, where we take old cars, strip it down, give it paint and smash into a bunch of people.
The last car running wins. The last car running that can move because if you get stuck then you are out too. My car didn’t hold up so well. It wasn’t bad, I did alright I had some good hits but it didn’t last very long.
Hanging out with my five-year-old son Landon and my girlfriend Laura. I've done a lot of snake hunting and frog hunting with him. One day we caught 41 frogs. I also make up treasure hunts for him and we go treasure hunting. He found $50 worth of pennies and nickels.
He has snowboarded. I don’t know to what extent. I started him out skiing when he was 2 and at 3 he wanted to try snowboarding. He's into golfing. I bought him a set of golf clubs and he said "golf is the only sport I'm doing".
I'm going to try my hardest but I definitely have goals. Number one is making the Olympic team and everyone says "oh you want to win the gold, you want to win the gold"; first off I want to take it in stride, I want to make the Team then go from there but I definitely want to win a lot.
