Pro snowboarder Mia Brookes revealed that she listened to “a lot of Pantera” before representing Britain at the Winter Olympics.
The 19-year-old athlete from Cheshire just missed out on a medal at the Winter Olympics earlier this week, ranking fourth in the snowboard big air final.
She just missed out by slightly over-rotating on her final attempt, looking to pull off an impressive 1620 trick that saw her do four and a half rotations. The move had only been done successfully once prior in the history of the sport and, in his commentary, BBC Sport commentator Ed Leigh said that she likely would have taken home the gold medal if she pulled it off.
Ahead of the event, she psyched herself up for the big moment with help from a playlist that she made, which contained a lot of Pantera.
Speaking to The Guardian, she said that she listened to the metal band “a lot” before heading to the top of the 150ft-high ramp, and said what it felt like to compete at the 2026 event.
“I’ve only ever done [the 1620] on the airbag, and the last time I tried it was five months ago. So that was the first time I’ve ever tried it on snow. But sometimes you’ve just got to grit your teeth and get it done,” she said.
“I thought I’d got it and I did get it. I got it to my feet but I just gave it too much power, listening to my music too loud, I spun it too quickly…But yeah, I’m pumped.”
“I was listening to a lot of Pantera,” she added. “All jokes aside, it’s a gnarly trick to do. There is a higher risk, especially when you know I would be the second woman to do it. So, yeah it’s pretty scary.”
Brookes spoke about her love of metal ahead of the event too, telling Olympics.com that she listened to some of the biggest names in the scene to get into the right headspace when competing.
“I just listen to music to try to block out all the noise going on around me. Mostly heavy metal music like Metallica, Pantera, Judas Priest, stuff like that.”
While she may not have secured a medal at this year’s Winter Olympics, the athlete did win gold in slopestyle at the World Championships back in 2023, and came in first in the sport at the X Games in both 2024 and 2026.
In 2023, she earned the title as the youngest snowboarding champion in history and thanked Metallica for helping her feel inspired. She then went on to take home first place in Big Air at the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 World Cups.
“Listening to Metallica gets me hyped up and wanting to land all my tricks,” Mia told the BBC at the time (as per Loudwire). “It gets me in that mindset in the mornings. If I’m standing at the top of a slope, it helps me visualise when I’m going to drop in.”
Mia Brookes isn’t the only competitor at this year’s Winter Olympics to share their love of heavy metal either. Earlier this week it was revealed that Italian alpine ski racer Dominik Paris, who took home a bronze medal at the event, is also the frontman of a groove metal band called Rise Of Voltage.
He spoke to ESPN Originals about juggling the band and the sport at the Winter Olympics, and described Rise Of Voltage as “a passion” project for him. He also added that he has been interested in metal since he was 14, and is looking to book “some gigs in the summer time.”
Last year, a contestant in the Miss World Chile pageant, Ignacia Fernández, was crowned winner of the competition after going viral for performing a death metal song at the event.
“Metal has been a fundamental part of who I am as a person and in my life: a refuge, a source of strength and purpose,” the contestant – who is also the frontwoman of a band called Decessus – said after the victory.
On top of that, American rock climber Alex Honnold successfully scaled one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers, Taipei 101, earlier this year and went viral after revealing that he did so while listening to Tool.
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