Going 50 miles per hour down a snowy incline, Akina Kizuka isn’t just balancing her snowboard. She spent her freshman year balancing a professional snowboarding career with her academics as a first-year chemistry major.

The Reading, Pa. native has just completed her freshman year at Ohio State and made international snowboarding history in the process. She, along with her two older sisters Mika and Kaiya, recently became the first sibling trio to compete in the Snowboard Alpine World Cup, a prelude to the Olympic Games. In addition, she finished second with her teammate Walker Overstake in the FIS Snowboard Alpine Junior World Championship in Mixed Team Parallel Giant Slalom. 

She did all of this in March on location in Canada and Italy, while also completing her studies as a freshman majoring in chemistry at Ohio State. 

“When I was competing in high school, I missed a total of around 180 days, so I am kind of used to this,” Kizuka, who has been competing as a professional on the U.S. snowboard racing team since she was 15, said with a laugh. “I try to work ahead and establish connections with my professors and get as much done as I can.”

In addition to her studies and snowboarding, Kizuka is involved with the weightlifting club at Ohio State, which she said helps her not only stay physically fit for her snowboarding career, but also keeps her in a routine. Despite missing time in the classroom, the structure provided by her routine and flexibility from her professors gave her the blueprint she needed to succeed as a first-year student in Columbus. 

“It’s basically class, lift, study and repeat every day and mixing in my social life in between,” she said. 

Kizuka is taking classes year-round and plans to graduate from Ohio State in just three years, setting herself up for success in more ways than one. 

Becoming a Buckeye

While Kaiya graduated from Penn State University and Mika from Lehigh University, also in Pennsylvania, Akina decided she wanted to break away from the Keystone State. Despite having opportunities at schools in areas where snowboarding is more prominent, Akina said Ohio State provided the perfect amount of distance from home, while also providing her with the chance to have family close by.

“I wanted to have some space from home,” she said. “And I got a scholarship to Ohio State, which was of course a big factor. On top of that, my sister Mika works in Dublin, Ohio for Honda as a mechanical engineer so I still have family nearby.”

Success on the Slopes

Kizuka said she was planning on taking the year off from competition to acclimate to the college transition, but after competing in some races over the winter break, her success drove her to continue. 

“I reached my first podium (on Jan. 15) in the parallel slalom at the Nor-Am Cup in Minnesota, so I decided to miss my first few weeks of classes in the spring semester,” she said. “So, then I went to Colorado the following week and I won my first two races. At that point, I had to keep going.”

In all, Kizuka competed in 19 events across three different countries from January-March 2026 and at 19 years of age, she ranks No. 1 in the women’s Nor-Am Cup Parallel Giant Slalom event, with her sister Mika ranked No. 9. 

“Snowboarding is just something my parents did for fun, but then they taught my oldest sister Kaiya how to do it,” she said. “Then she started competing in regional events, and my middle sister Mika followed, and I came around after that. It became a family tradition, and we all enjoy the competitive aspect of it.”

Focused on the Future

Ultimately, Kizuka aspires to reach the 2030 Winter Olympics which are set to take place in the French Alps. Since she is working to complete her undergraduate degree in just three years, she hopes to have a full-time job in sensory science, which uses human senses to evaluate the characteristics of food items, by then. While she doesn’t know exactly what that will entail, she is hoping it will include flexibility with remote work so that she can continue to compete on an international level. 

“I would like to race in the World Cup, in order to qualify for the Olympics, but that involves spending an entire winter in Europe, so it is a big-time commitment,” she said. “It is hard to do that while also completing a degree, so I am on track to graduate a year early so I can pursue that opportunity.”

Given how much she’s accomplished before the age of 20, there’s little doubt that Kizuka will succeed in the future, both in the classroom and on the slopes.