WESTPORT, Conn. (WCBS 880) — Connecticut is celebrating its hometown hero, snowboarder Julia Marino, who was the first Team USA member to earn a medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Marino, 24, won a silver medal in women's snowboard slopestyle Sunday, coming in second to Zoi Sadowski Synnott who brought home New Zealand's first gold medal in Winter Olympics history.
Marino's journey to the Olympic games all started in her backyard in Westport, Connecticut.
As a child, Marino would build mounds of snow on her deck and then snowboard off the flat roof over the kitchen of their antique home.
"That's who she was since a little kid, it was just innate to her," her mother, Elaine, told WCBS 880's Sean Adams on Monday.
Marino also built a zip line in the yard and would study in a hammock high up in a Norway spruce.
From there she went on to spending weekends in Vermont and winters in Colorado, logging long hours of training that brought her all the way to a silver Olympic win.
Her mother is proud, not only of her daughter's physical feats, but also her kind heart.
She watched in awe as Marino hugged and celebrated Sadowski Synnott's gold medal win.
"She just saw her and cheered and ran out into where Zoe landed and did like 'Yay,' and congratulated her. That was unbelievable, you know, but for me that's Julia," said Elaine Marino. "She cares about her competitors."
She also marvels at her daughter's sportsmanship and perseverance.
"Julia fell at the Olympcis. She fell on her first round in the qualifiers. She barely made it into the final. We were worried. She got into 6th place and it took the top 12. But that was a scare. To come back from that, falling on the first feature on global news, but she just picked herself up," Elaine Marino said.
Marino has one more Olympic event before she gets to return to the U.S. for a big welcome home celebration in Connecticut.
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