LARGER THAN "LIFE

Since winning gold at the X Games in 2020, snowboarder Zeb Powell has amassed a legion of fans through his wildly creative tricks and video clips. But his impact is bigger than that. He’s inspiring a new  generation of snowboarders who admire his pure joy for the sport and his belief that everyone is welcome to come along for the ride.

- NORA O’DONNELL 

IT'S TWO HOURS BEFORE his afternoon competition at the 2023 X Games, and Zeb Powell wants to eat. Though the pro snowboarder is buzzing with energy, he's in need of some lunch. The tweezered small bites in the luxe VIP station in Aspen are not going to cut it. A member of his team makes a mad dash to the media tent to retrieve some bananas and protein bars. But by the time she returns, Powell has decided he needs to burn off some steam and take a couple of runs on the mountain, so his manager stuffs the food in his coat pockets. It's just another day in the life of a megatalented 23-year-old athlete in perpetual motion.

Three years ago, Powell burst onto the scene when he won X Games gold in the knuckle huck competition as a rookie. Unlike established snowboarding disciplines that demand perfect execution of certain moves, this newer event rewarded creativity and seemed custom-made for Powell, who wowed judges and spectators with his unconventional tricks. Indeed, the move that clinched his 2020 win, a coffin slide to backflip-which he did while sporting a pair of pink, heart-shaped sunglasses-is still getting talked about by snowboarding pundits to this day.

Seemingly overnight, Powell became known as a rider who embodied snowboarding's roots, where the goal is simply to have fun with friends and entertain (and impress) each other with originality. And as the first Black snowboarder to win gold at the X Games, his mere existence set off an avalanche of media attention and then celebrity friendships and then broader fameall of which gave him the opportunity to leverage his exposure for the greater good. Despite the pressure of these labels, Powell takes it all in stride.

"I just do my own thing, and it seems to be working," Powell says with a small shrug and a smile. By just being himself, he's become a beloved ambassador for the sport and a change agent for the culture.