Janna Meyen-Weatherby started snowboarding in 1989 – a few years before some of her current competitors were even born. Back then, growing up just three blocks from Big Bear, no one in her family skied, let alone snowboarded. But one day in sixth grade changed all that for Meyen, when she caught her first glimpse of a lone figure riding down the mountain amid all the skiers.
With her background in skateboarding – she did grow in SoCal after all – Meyen quickly picked up snowboarding, winning the first amateur contest she entered against a field of both boys and girls. Also racing BMX and playing ice hockey on the side, Meyen won the 1991 US Open title at the age of 13.
Balancing a party lifestyle off the slopes with her success on them, Meyen nonetheless continued to dominate competitions throughout the 1990’s. But at the turn of the century, Meyen picked up and moved from Cali to Bend, Ore., where her life changed drastically and she made an even bigger impact on snowboarding history.
Landing on her first X Games podium in 2002 when she took second, the next four years could have been renamed the Meyen show. Winning four consecutive gold medals in slopestyle (from 2003-06), Meyen became the first Winter X Games athlete other than Shaun White to win back-to-back-to-back-to-back titles.
With all of her X Games hardware – and the US Open title she reclaimed in 2005 – Snowboarder Magazine named Meyen the sport’s most influential rider of the past two decades in the summer of ’08.
