Nicola Thost was a German snowboarder who specialised in half-pipe events. She was named Snowboarder of the Year by different sports magazines from 1998-2002. She won the gold medal at Nagano in 1998, and four years later at Salt Lake City was handicapped by a fracture in her arm, and finished eleventh.
Thost became a snowboarding professional and founded several companies. She later participated successfully in triathlon events. From 2015 she concentrated on snowboard freeride events. In 2009, she posed naked in the German edition of Playboy Magazine.