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Though not the reigning Olympic snowboarder for women, Gretchen is a star in snowboarding with a silver medal. Gretchen Bleiler was born on April 10, 1981 in Toledo,Ohio and currently resides in Aspen, Colorado. Blieler has earned the Olympic nickname of "Super G" because of her super energy level. Gretchen is a pro half pipe and super pipe and 5'5". Snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler found her passion for snowboarding at age 11 (she was eleven in 1992) In 1996 (age 15), she was announced as a pro and has been riding ever since. She was the first female to ever land a Crippler 540. Bleiler went on to win competitions in 2003,2005,and a silver medal for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics.She narrowly missed the 2002 Olympic team because of a tiebreaker. She has won many competitions such as Winter X Games and Triple Crown of Snowboarding.Starting in 2007, Bleiler was expanding her career to start an outerwear line for Oakley and K2 Snowboarding along with snowboard graphics design. Whenever she is not competing, Gretchen Blieler is most likely mountain biking,surfing or designing something new. She married Chris Hotell and came to an Olympic ceremony on a horse afterwords. Bleiler took silver in the half pipe.

Resources:

WWW.Wikipedia.com WWW.nbcolympics.com