11-year-old Patti Zhou makes history on Dew Tour. What to know about the snowboard sensation

Google "things an 11 year old can do" and the search engine will return activities like Learn how to knot friendship bracelets or Set up easels and paint pictures outside.

For Patti Zhou, the answer is a bit different.

The 11-year-old snowboarder finished second in the Dew Tour women’s snowboard superpipe event Sunday in Copper Mountain, Colorado, becoming the youngest athlete to ever land on a winter Dew Tour podium and the second-youngest ever at any Dew Tour event.

Zhou trailed 14-year-old South Korean Gaon Choi, whose score of 98.33 was one of the highest ever awarded at the Dew Tour.

Here's everything you need to know about Patti Zhou.

How did Patti Zhou place second in the Dew Tour women's snowboard superpipe event?

On her second run, Zhou featured a switch backside 900 melon, Cab 720 Weddle, frontside 540 melon and backside 540 Weddle and fetched a score of 90.66. With a solid run secured, Zhou tried to push her routine further to challenge Choi, but fell on both her third and fourth runs.

"I was thinking about another run with a switch backside 720 at the bottom, but I couldn’t do my best run," Zhou said, according to the Dew Tour website. "It’s alright: I’m happy, I’m happy for everyone, I’m happy for myself, and I’m happy for everyone who stoked me up. I feel like this is all so new: I’m so small and immature still and know I have a lot to learn, and I feel like I can keep getting better. I’m so excited to come back next year."

What else did Patti Zhou say about her performance at the Dew Tour event?

"I feel so excited and so thankful to be here," Zhou said. "I feel like Copper Mountain is my family: they’ve been supporting me ever since I first came here. This pipe is amazing, and the whole entire Dew Tour crew is amazing. I’m speechless."

Who is 11-year-old snowboarder Patti Zhou?

Born in Beijing but based in Silverthorne, Colorado, Zhou made her Dew Tour debut in the halfpipe and slopestyle events. Though she has enormous potential as a wunderkind, Zhou actually won't be eligible for the next Winter Olympics in 2026 in Italy because she won't yet be 15, the minimum age required to compete.

"When I was young, I thought the mountain was so big and so scary and so dark" Zhou told the Associated Press. "But the mountain is actually alive. So when I go snowboarding I always try to find the animal creatures in there."

Zhou started snowboarding at the age of two and says she names the animals she encounters on the slopes after winter sports athletes she admires. During snowboarding season, a typical day will see Zhou start off with Cocoa Puffs and then training runs at Copper Mountain, before finishing with fries and ketchup. Zhou is home schooled and enjoys science fiction movies, such as "The Martian," "Interstellar," "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," "The Matrix" and "Avatar." Zhou also surfs and trains at a wave pool in Waco, Texas.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Patti Zhou: Snowboard star makes history on Dew Tour at age 11