Helen Olafsen, the rising star of the Norwegian team, grew up in Oppegaard, near to Oslo. She was born 1990, February 21st (by the way the same birth date like the Norwegian King) with a huge desire for exercise which she acted out in different sports.

When she was six, she started to play handball and football enjoying competitive sports especially by satisfying the desire for winning.

In 1997 Santa Claus made Helene a present of a snowboard. Although sportive focus from now on changed, the competitive spirit remained the same. Absolutely flashed from her first line down a field in Lovlia she decided to put all energy into snowboarding. Ever since, she strapped on the board whenever she had time to do so loving all facets of the new sport, well, in the beginning.

After participating in big air, giant slalom, halfpipe contests - which she still enters on World Cup level sometimes as she is a member of the national team in sbx, halfpipe and slopestyle - she finally got hooked by snowboard cross becoming one of the world's best riders within only a few years.

Before she participated in her first ever World Cup race, this true athlete had already put a FIS Junior World Championships Silver medal (2006) and a FIS Snowboard World Championships Bronze medal (2007) to her belt.

In the last three snowboard cross World Cup races of the 2006/2007 winter, Olafsen placed eighth and third in Lake Placid (USA) before celebrating her first ever triumph in Stoneham (CAN) at the season's finals. The young gun crowned her season by grabbing the 2007 FIS Junior Snowboard World Championships title in Bad Gastein (AUT).

In 35 World Cup races until the end of the 2011 seasaon, the 2004 Rookie of the Year earned a total of ten podium finishes including four victories - with surely more to come as she proved at the 2009 Worlds in Korea where she brought home the Gold medal aged 18.

And not only did she thrill the crowd and her contenders but also the journalists at the press conference later on when she answered a question regarding her training with "I don't train snowboard cross at all. First, we don't have any fix courses in Europe and second, I enjoy to do freeriding more."

According to this, it's pretty likely that one might be able to focus her on the World Cup tour again, but maybe in different events as she is totally in favor of slopestyle riding.