Olympic Hopeful: Walker Overstake
01/07/2026 12:48PM ● By Sophie Dingle
Photo courtesy of Walker Overstake.
As is not uncommon in Steamboat Springs, Walker Overstake started snowboarding when he was 3 years old. What was uncommon was the snowboarding part; Walker is from a family of skiers. His grandmother, Petie VanEveren, started the ladies ski program at Eldora Ski Area decades ago. “This resulted in Petie influencing and encouraging countless numbers of skiers to fall in love with the sport of skiing – not snowboarding,” Walker’s father, Ryan Overstake, points out. “No one else in our family snowboards; there was some pressure and expectation to ski.”
It was Walker’s babysitter, Jessica Wearren Olsen, who took him out snowboarding. While he did both ski and snowboard for a while, Ryan remembers that over the years, Walker wasd etermined to snowboard – so that’s what he did.
His standout season came last winter when he won the NorAm Cup, got fifth place at the World Junior Championships and had four World Cup top 30 finishes. It wasn’t all smooth boarding though. “At the beginning, my mindset was lacking a performance-based focus, meaning I was more set on winning rather than performing at my best by focusing on specific objectives,” Walker explains. This resulted in mostly poor finishes. But as Walker worked to improve his mindset – doing extensive sports psychology work – his riding quickly followed and the results started to show. “My momentum was driven by two main things: grit through passion for the sport, and celebrating every growth in a very confident way,” he says.
Last winter, he accomplished nearly all the goals that he set. Even so, when his coach told him that he had a shot at the 2026 Olympics, Walker was shocked. “I always knew I had the potential for the Olympics at some point, so that wasn’t what shocked me – it was more the realization that I had the potential for the immediate Olympics in Italy in 2026,” he says. “I was filled with euphoria and a mixture of nervousness and excitement. I was scared, stoked and felt like it wasn’t real.”
But it was real; so Walker did the next logical thing and kept training. Last summer, he lifted weights with his strength coach, Jeff Thompson, four days a week beginning at 6:30 in the morning. He added in field cardio and plyometric training two days a week for two hours a day. And he did anywhere from three to six bike rides per week. It was all to prepare him for camp in El Colorado, Chile where he found himself for six weeks in August and September, training alongside some of the best athletes in the world.
In the winter months leading up to the Olympics, Walker will be on the World Cup circuit again, which will ultimately determine his Olympic path. The advice that he takes with him is from his mother, Heather: just do your best. “It sounds simple, but it means so much,” Walker says. “To me, it means all I need to do is what I do, and that’s when I perform my best.”
As is not uncommon in Steamboat Springs, Walker Overstake started snowboarding when he was 3 years old. What was uncommon was the snowboarding part; Walker is from a family of skiers. His grandmother, Petie VanEveren, started the ladies ski program at Eldora Ski Area decades ago. “This resulted in Petie influencing and encouraging countless numbers of skiers to fall in love with the sport of skiing – not snowboarding,” Walker’s father, Ryan Overstake, points out. “No one else in our family snowboards; there was some pressure and expectation to ski.”
It was Walker’s babysitter, Jessica Wearren Olsen, who took him out snowboarding. While he did both ski and snowboard for a while, Ryan remembers that over the years, Walker wasd etermined to snowboard – so that’s what he did.
His standout season came last winter when he won the NorAm Cup, got fifth place at the World Junior Championships and had four World Cup top 30 finishes. It wasn’t all smooth boarding though. “At the beginning, my mindset was lacking a performance-based focus, meaning I was more set on winning rather than performing at my best by focusing on specific objectives,” Walker explains. This resulted in mostly poor finishes. But as Walker worked to improve his mindset – doing extensive sports psychology work – his riding quickly followed and the results started to show. “My momentum was driven by two main things: grit through passion for the sport, and celebrating every growth in a very confident way,” he says.
Last winter, he accomplished nearly all the goals that he set. Even so, when his coach told him that he had a shot at the 2026 Olympics, Walker was shocked. “I always knew I had the potential for the Olympics at some point, so that wasn’t what shocked me – it was more the realization that I had the potential for the immediate Olympics in Italy in 2026,” he says. “I was filled with euphoria and a mixture of nervousness and excitement. I was scared, stoked and felt like it wasn’t real.”
But it was real; so Walker did the next logical thing and kept training. Last summer, he lifted weights with his strength coach, Jeff Thompson, four days a week beginning at 6:30 in the morning. He added in field cardio and plyometric training two days a week for two hours a day. And he did anywhere from three to six bike rides per week. It was all to prepare him for camp in El Colorado, Chile where he found himself for six weeks in August and September, training alongside some of the best athletes in the world.
In the winter months leading up to the Olympics, Walker will be on the World Cup circuit again, which will ultimately determine his Olympic path. The advice that he takes with him is from his mother, Heather: just do your best. “It sounds simple, but it means so much,” Walker says. “To me, it means all I need to do is what I do, and that’s when I perform my best.”