4TG

#43 What It Really Takes to Win an Olympic Gold Medal, With Josie Baff

• Kylie Lynch • Season 2 • Episode 43

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0:00 | 58:32

She finished 17th in her seeding run. She had the flu. She won Olympic gold anyway.

Josie Baff is a 23-year-old snowboarder from Jindabyne and Australia's first ever Olympic gold medallist in women's snowboard cross. But this episode is not about what happened on the podium. It is about everything that happened between the race that broke her and the one that made her.

After a difficult campaign at Beijing 2022, Josie spent four years rebuilding her mindset from the ground up. Working with a sports psychologist and life coach, she developed the mental performance tools that carried her all the way to Milan 2026. Her story is raw, practical and packed with lessons every athlete needs to hear.

In this episode, we cover:

  • Why success is not linear and how to use your worst result as your biggest pivot
  • The alter ego strategy Josie uses to perform consistently under pressure
  • Process over outcome and why wishing for a result is not the same as working for one
  • The difference between confidence and arrogance and why female athletes need to own it
  • How Josie used journaling, sports psychology and intentional training to build mental strength
  • Why luck in sport is something you forge, not something that finds you
  • What needs to change to keep more girls and women in sport for longer

Chapters

00:00 – Introduction and what this episode is really about 

02:15 – Snap Fitness Rapid Fire 

04:30 – Growing up in Jindabyne and falling in love with snowboarding 

08:45 – Fun as a performance philosophy and intrinsic motivation 

13:00 – Beijing 2022 and the campaign that didn't go to plan 

17:30 – World Championships heartbreak and what it revealed 

23:00 – Building an alter ego with her sports psychologist 

29:15 – Process over outcome and being present in training 

35:00 – Luck, superstitions and letting go of jinx thinking 

40:30 – "I can't believe it, but I kind of can" – confidence vs arrogance 

47:00 – Tall poppy syndrome and owning your belief as a female athlete 

52:30 – What women's sport needs to grow and the power of co-ed environments 

58:00 – What Josie would tell her 16-year-old self

Follow Josie

Instagram: @josiebaff

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ABOUT THE HOST

Kylie Lynch is the Founder and Host of 4TG (For The Girls), a podcast and platform on a mission to keep more girls and women in sport.

A VFLW athlete, Australian representative in Polocrosse, coach, mentor and media/communications professional, Kylie has spent her career at the intersection of sport, media and community impact. Through 4TG, she shares the stories, lessons and experiences of elite athletes, coaches and industry leaders to help girls and women build confidence, navigate challenges and stay involved in sport for longer. Because sport doesn't just build athletes. It builds confidence, resilience, leadership, connection and opportunities that positively impact girls and women both on and off the field.

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