Manx snowboarder Zoë Gillings-Brier will go for Winter Olympic gold in the early hours of Friday morning.

The 32-year-old from Ronague will battle it out with 29 others in the women’s snowboardcross competition at the Games in South Korea.

Zoë, who is now based in Leeds, will make a bit of history when she takes to the slopes tomorrow as she becomes the first British snowboarder to compete at four Winter Olympics.

Gillings-Brier made her debut at the Turin Games in 2006, finishing 15th in the event she once described as BMX on snow.

Four years later in Vancouver, Zoë looked well placed to make the final, only to injure her knee in the semis as she finished eighth.

Last time around at the Sochi Olympics she missed out on the final by the narrowest of margins in a photo finish with Italy’s Michela Moiolo in her semi-final.

This yielded a ninth-place finish, the same position she finished at last year’s World Championship meeting in Spain.

In an interview with Eurosport ahead of travelling to the Games, Gillings-Brier said she was optimistic about her chances of getting a good result: ’The great thing and the annoying thing about board cross is the unpredictability of it, so you never know what’s going to happen.

’But as long as you’re there, on the startline, on the race day, then everyone in the competition’s got a chance of winning.

’So I’m going as fast as I can and beat as many girls as I canâ?¦I’ll try and keep my mind as empty as it can be and just watch the gate, and the first movement I see of the gate â?¦ GO!’

Gillings-Brier added: ’The people of the island have always been right behind me as well, giving me the confidence I need to compete at this level.’

If the weather plays ball and the event runs to schedule, qualification will begin at 10am, 1am GMT, with the top six contesting the medal race just before 1pm (4am).