Self-belief is a powerful tool for an athlete to have.
The assurity that your training has worked, your skills have been honed, your strength has improved and that there is nothing that you have left on the cutting room floor.
Mixed with the right degree of humility, it can fuel greatness.
It can make Olympic champions.
Get the latest:
Winter Olympics day seven: Baff claims stunning snowboard cross win
Stay across the highs and lows of the Games with the ABC Sport Daily podcast and ABC Sport.
Australia’s eighth ever Winter Olympic champion Josie Baff knew she had what it takes to claim Olympic gold.
Josie Baff won Australia’s second gold medal of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. (Supplied: OWIA/Chris Hocking)
From the moment she stepped into her boots, locking them in place on her board and dialled in at the top of the Livigno Snow Park course, she was filled with the powerful knowledge that today was going to be the day that all the hard work would pay off in the greatest possible way.
“I would like to say that I can’t believe it, but I kind of can,” Baff told us moments after winning the snowboard cross title — Australia’s first ever gold in the event in Olympic history.
“I feel like I deserve it, and I put in a lot of hard work so I knew I could do it.
“But to actually have the medal around my neck is very, very cool.”
Josie Baff first. Daylight second. (Supplied: OWIA/Chris Hocking)
Being cool and calm under pressure is something that Baff honed into an art form these past few hours under the blinding sunshine of Friday afternoon in Livigno.
After a “uncharacteristic” mistake in the seeding run put her in 17th place, Baff had to do things the hard way to even reach the medal round.
Drawn against Czech legend Eva Adamczykova in the 1/8 final — the woman who beat her to gold in the 2023 World Championships — Baff knew she needed to come in and be on form from the get go.
“When I saw her that I had a first round, it’s definitely a tough first heat,” Baff said.Â
“But I knew that it could also wake me up and work in my favour.Â
“It meant that we were racing from the first round and we were able to lock into that mindset really early on.
“[But] If you want to win, you have to beat everyone eventually anyway, so I guess it kind of wakes up that part of you and you have to just be locked in from the get-go.”
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Josie Baff. (Getty Images: PA Images/David Davies)
That mistake in the seeding run was the first that Baff had made all week on the Olympic course.Â
It could have rattled a less confident rider, planting a seed of doubt that would crack the sturdy edifice that her confidence had build around her as easily as the sun-warmed snow crumbling off the roofs around town.
Not Baff, though.Â
“I love my heelside turns,” Baff said of her mistake in the seeding rounds earlier in the day.
“It’s one of the things that I have the most fun doing, so when I fell in the seeding, I was definitely disappointed.
“I knew I was super fast on this track, I was fast throughout all the training days that we’ve had here so it was definitely a little bit annoying.
Josie Baff (in the lead) had great speed all day. (Getty Images: Patrick Smith)
“[But] I knew I could do it. The snow was softening up [in the sun], so I knew I wasn’t going to have an issue. I haven’t had an issue any other day so I knew I could do it.
“And after I went through that first heat, I guess I kind of relaxed a little bit.
“Each heat after that gets progressively easier for me, I get into that head space and I kind of, I guess, activate a different part of myself.Â
“I guess the real competitor in me comes out.”
Read more about the Winter Olympics:
Heats are not meant to get easier, but the fact that Baff said they did simply underlines the belief that she has in herself and her quality as a competitor.
And it is to her immense credit that she did make it look easier the further she progressed through the heats towards the final.
In the quarterfinal, heavily favoured Brit Charlotte Bankes was dispatched in a hugely competitive race which saw Adamczykova win and Baff only beat Sina Siegenthaler by a photo.
Josie Baff (second left) was able to overcome the challenge of Sina Siegenthaler (second right) and Charlotte Bankes (right) in the quarterfinal. (Getty Images: PA Images/David Davies)
But into the semis, Baff bought her racing nous to the fore, making a memorable pass through turns two and three to move from third to first, repeating the move on Adamczykova in the final at the same point of the course.
“In the quarterfinal I was behind Ava and I was coming in with a lot of speed there and I kind of thought I could ride Ava’s tail to the bottom and have a free lift with her, knowing that she was fast, so I speed-checked,” Baff explained.
“After that I was kind of disappointed in myself, because I knew that there was space.
“I went back up to the top and I told my coach [Harald Benselin], ‘if I’m in that situation again, I’m going’.
“I know I can ride that turn middle inside high line, no matter where I am, I know I can really rail this turn and it was the same with the following one.
“So I guess that gave me the confidence to do it.
“And after I did it in semis, I knew I could do it again in finals.”
Josie Baff is Australia’s second ever Olympic medallist in snowboard cross. (Supplied: OWIA/Chris Hocking)
There’s that Baff self-belief, growing with ever successful move, every step she took towards Olympic gold.
But even with the invincible feeling that confidence imbues within an athlete, the emotional response of getting closer to your stated goal can release emotions, like the delicate dripping of meltwater out of the snow pack only to suddenly burst in one explosive collapse.
And Baff acknowledged that the dam almost cracked after she made the big final, admitting that she was fighting back tears on her way back up to the start.
“I kind of had like an emotional release, and I was like, ‘wow, who was that?’,” Baff said.
“It was not something that I normally do. I guess it’s like a lot of build up and it’s all of the four years of hard work and I guess that all kind of comes out, and when it works, it feels pretty great.
“I was holding them [the tears] back.Â
“I knew I still had a job to do. I knew I still had a job to do so but going up the skidoo for sure I was holding them back, fighting them.”
The dam broke when Josie Baff looked at her medal for the first time. (Supplied: OWIA/Chris Hocking)
And fight them she did, powering down to the bottom of the slope to become Australia’s second gold medallist at these Games in the space of 24 hours, roaring with joy to release that tension.
But soon after she crossed the line and the reality of her success sunk in, the tears came in a torrent.
And when the medal was finally placed around her neck and she looked down at it for the first time, even more tears came.Â
The dam finally bursting with the weight of gold and meeting of her own lofty expectations.Â