GB Snowsport have today confirmed a 41-athlete Alpine squad to represent Britain in international competition for the 2024/25 season
- Three-man World Cup squad lead British charge
- Zak and Freddy Carrick-Smith join brother Luca in Europa Cup Squad
- Six 2007 born athletes feature across FIS and EC Squads
Following their history-making exploits last season, the Men’s Slalom team of Billy Major, Dave Ryding, and Laurie Taylor lead the charge as the World Cup Squad, supported by a refreshed coaching and support team that features former Olympian and World Cup racer Alain Baxter alongside longstanding team member Jai Geyer, and TJ Baldwin who joins the team for the coming season in coaching and support roles.
The team, who finished sixth in the Slalom Nations Cup standings in 2023/24, enter the season in fine shape, looking to build on a number of historic results and personal bests over the past twelve months.
A 12-athlete Europa Cup Squad sees four new faces with Abi Bruce and Molly Butler both promoted from the FIS Squad, and Freddy Carrick-Smith and Zak Carrick-Smith both also selected, joining their brother Luca, with Freddy and Zak the youngest athletes in the British EC Squad set-up. Joining them are 2023/24 NorAm Slalom Cup champion Victoria Palla, alongside Reece Bell, Ed Guigonnet, Robert Holmes, Jack Irving, Calum Langmuir, and Owen Vinter.
The FIS Squad boasts 26 athletes, including George Brown, Lewis Parton, Ryan Pye, Toby Stephen, and Dante Adam Vidri all making their selection debut.
The World Cup Squad are first slated for action at the Levi Slalom World Cup in Levi, Finland, on 16-17 November, with pre-season training already underway.
Full Squad Selections
World Cup Squad
- Billy Major
- Dave Ryding
- Laurie Taylor
Europa Cup Squad
- Reece Bell
- Abi Bruce*
- Molly Butler*
- Luca Carrick-Smith
- Freddy Carrick-Smith**
- Zak Carrick-Smith**
- Ed Guigonnet
- Robert Holmes
- Jack Irving
- Calum Langmuir
- Victoria Palla
- Owen Vinter
FIS Squad
- Honor Bartlett
- Elliott Bennett
- Maisie Blyth
- George Brown**
- Jack Cunningham
- Daisi Daniels
- Louis de Pourtales
- Harry Duncan
- Alexa Elliff
- Lucas Ellis
- William Freear
- Giselle Gorringe
- Charlotte Holmes
- Olivia Howeson
- Lois Jackson
- Toby Jennings
- Max Laughland
- Lewis Parton**
- Emerson Proctor
- Ryan Pye**
- Dominic Shackleton
- Toby Stephen**
- Aidan Urquhart
- Dante Adam Vidri**
- Isla Ward
- Kieran Woolley
* Promoted from FIS Squad
** New Selection
Alpine star of Youth Olympic Games among five athletes on Piotr Nurowski Prize shortlist
Gangwon Youth Olympic Winter Games double gold medallist, Zak Carrick-Smith, has been named on a five-person shortlist for the Winter Edition Piotr Nurowski Best Young European Athlete Prize by the European Olympic Committees.
Zak, who made British history by taking the country’s first ever Alpine medals at an Olympic event in Gangwon, becomes the fourth British athlete shortlisted in the winter prize’s history after Madi Rowlands (2016), Kirsty Muir (2021), and Mia Brookes (2023).
The prize, which is awarded annually to an athlete aged 14-18 by the European Olympic Committees, celebrates the efforts of athletes who have both excelled in their sport and embodied Olympic Values inside and outside of competition, with the winner due to be announced at the European Olympic Committees’ General Assembly meeting on 6 June.
Zak is joined on the shortlist by Stephan Embacher (Austria, Ski Jumping), Antonin Guy (France, Biathlon), Minja Korhonen (Finland, Nordic Combined), and Julia Tannheimer (Germany, Biathlon).
Everyone at GB Snowsport would like to congratulate Zak for his efforts in achieving recognition from the EOC.
Next generation of British Alpine talent comes to the fore in Tignes
The GB Alpine Championships 2024 Children’s Week brought some of the nation’s most exciting young Alpine talent together in Tignes for a week where endeavour and excellence were on clear display.
Despite occasionally challenging weather conditions, Children’s Week saw the majority of races successfully run, with U16, U14, U12, and U10 talent all demonstrating their skill, commitment, and racing instincts to deliver a number of outstanding competitions across the week.
In the U10 and U12 categories, Leah McKennell (U10 Girls), Frey Diesen (U10 Boys), Isabelle Bradley (U12 Girls), and Zachary Nachkov (U12 Boys) took Combined titles, while the U14 and U16 Combined victories went to Zali Rearick (U14 Girls), Rufus Wontner (U14 Boys), Lucy Howeson (U16 Girls), and Hamish Blyth (U16 Boys). Blyth was also named recipient of the Cairngorm Quaich, a new trophy presented this year by Alain Baxter for international achievements of a U14 or U16 athlete selected to the British Children’s Ski Team.
Team Prizes, meanwhile, went to CDC (Best Named Club Team Girls U14), Ambition Racing (Best Named Club Team Girls U16), and Apex (Best Named Club Team Boys U14, Best Named Club Team Boys U16, and Overall Children’s Best Club Team).
The Championships were generously supported by host resort, Tignes, and by Fusalp, Ski Exchange, Minerva’s Virtual Academy, and Everything Branded.
In the wake of Charlie Guest’s retirement from competitive skiing, we catch up with the Alpine World Cup star and two-time Olympian to hear her story first-hand
“I love skiing. I still love skiing. I feel really grateful I can walk away from the sport still in love with it, still an accidental athlete who go this far because I loved it.”
There can’t be many “accidental athletes” who can tick off two Olympic Winter Games (including a part in British Alpine skiing history as a member of the Team Parallel squad that took fifth place at the PyeongChang Games), a succession of Europa Cup podiums, and a flurry of Slalom World Cup top-30s. But then, there aren’t many athletes like Charlie Guest.
We’re talking two days on from Guest’s last race as a professional Alpine skier, and three days after the 30-year-old confirmed her retirement ahead of the 2024 Europa Cup Finals, in a day which she calls “one of the best days of my career”.
But first, there’s something she needs to explain.
“I think one of the things nobody really says is, to get to do this, there’s way more rubbish days than great days.”
It’s a simple line, said almost as a throwaway remark in a much longer discussion about life as an Alpine World Cup athlete, but it’s typical of this particular discussion because it highlights one of Guest’s many extraordinary talents: the ability to neatly shine a light on the side of athlete life that we rarely get to see.
“The best way I can describe it,” she says, “is that there are years, whole chunks of time, that I look back on and I don’t even know how I did it.”
“I was a kid that grew up skiing on Cairngorm Mountain. I’m an accidental athlete, I wasn’t born to this do this, and there were so many things I thought I’d never achieve – starting a World Cup, getting a podium at a Europa Cup, winning a Europa Cup race, making World Cup points – but somewhere there was something in me there was an underlying confidence that was telling me ‘go for it, go for it, go for it’.”
And that underlying confidence was critical, because to hear Guest’s story is to realise the extent of accomplishments achieved in the face of enormously difficult circumstances. The back injury in 2014, for example, that saw her break four vertebrae.
“That was the longest lasting injury ever; I struggled with back injuries for five years after that, and there’d be days I’d get up and I just couldn’t even walk,” she explains. “I spent the first half of my twenties in a lot of discomfort, emotionally and physically, striving for the goal of an Olympic medal or a World Cup medal. However, I am so proud of what I have gone onto achieve – things that had never been done before in British Alpine, but it will always hurt me that I’m sitting here today, knowing that I’ve not achieved a World Cup podium, but I know I gave 100% of myself for that goal, and I know I sacrificed everything I possibly could have done for those goals, and boy no one can ever take that away from me.”
So bad were the impacts of that injury that weeks out from her first foray at the Olympic Winter Games, she was relying on teammate Alex Tilley to put her socks on for her, because there was no way she could do it for herself. And nor was it the only struggle she faced.
“I was always very aware of the burdens, including the financial burden, the sport can bring. Even from about the age of 12, I was very conscious that for my parents things like buying skis were expensive. And then, as I got further in my career, there were times I’d really doubt myself, thinking I wasn’t good enough, or I didn’t have the pedigree, or I didn’t have the background. But every time, the race or training times could speak for themselves and seeing improvement day after day gave me motivation and helped me to find a way around those challenges.”
And in the end, the picture of her career, seen in retrospect, is one of almost overwhelming success.
11 World Cup individual top-30 finishes including five top-20s and a high watermark of 13th achieved in Schladming in January 2022, the culmination of a week of Slalom World Cup races that saw Guest’s personal best re-set three times in a row. The first British woman to ever win an Alpine Europa Cup race, a feat she ended up achieving three times, in Folgaria in March 2019, in Hasliberg in January 2020, and in Reiteralm in March 2021. An eight-time Europa Cup podium holder, with two of those coming in her final season on snow. So how did the “accidental athlete” come to be such a competitive force on snow?
“I had the grit, I had the determination and a serious work ethic. But what stands out to me, looking back is that if we look at the whole of my story, the 2019-2022 period was incredibly successful. I feel I’m just testament to what an athlete can do when they have support and have the right people around them,” she says. “I went from never having won a Europa Cup to winning three, from never having made a World Cup top-30 to coming 13th thanks to the complete background support I had at that time.
“When I started out, and I think this is true for myself, Alex [Tilley], Billy [Major], Laurie [Taylor], Charlie [Raposo], and anyone younger, a lot of us came into our senior careers with no support whatsoever, we’ve kind of had to figure a lot of it out ourselves. I’m so proud of our generation for being able to look at it [The Alpine Skiing World Cup] and say ‘we’re going to do this’, and we have put down that marker that shows ‘yeah, we did it’.”
Guest’s decision to retire came in steps, but crystallised for her when she reached a point that she says made her “sort of realise that the reasons to keep going just weren’t stacking up anymore.”
What does she mean by that?
“Somewhere, the fight just sort of ran out for me. I needed some uplift, and I just couldn’t find it anywhere. And it started to get to a point where the other girls on the tour could see that too. People were coming up to me in February and saying “please, take a week off”, because they know what I’m capable of, the barriers I’ve been working with, and when those results weren’t coming anymore they could see something wasn’t right.”
In speaking with Guest, there’s almost an undertone of self-criticism, which seems at odds with the esteem in which she’s held by other British skiers, and by members of the Women’s Europa Cup and World Cup tours. She must have been aware of the genuine emotion sparked by news of her retirement, I suggest.
“Yeah, absolutely,” she agreed. “Since I told people, some of the reactions and the outpouring of love has been huge, beyond anything I’d have imagined. Even coaches I’ve only worked alongside and athletes on other teams, seeing them get emotional about it, and receiving messages from fans who’ve been there following the journey right from the start. It’s been so overwhelmingly nice, supportive, and understanding. You make such great friends on the road with the people you’re skiing with, and those are friendships that will last forever, because they truly understand what you’ve gone through.”
It’s also not the first time that Guest has experienced a wave of support in the public eye this season. Earlier in the year, she penned a widely-shared open letter to FIS, highlighting the differences in broadcast coverage for male and female athletes at the World Junior Championships.
“The letter to FIS,” she recalls, “I wrote it over dinner and just posted it because I was so angry at what had happened, and woke up the next morning thinking ‘what have I just done?’. But having the backing of Mikaela Shiffrin, Lindsey Vonn, Anna Veith, all these big names standing behind it, and that let me realise ‘okay, good, I haven’t completely burned all my bridges here!”.
You suspect that even if she had, it wouldn’t have changed Guest’s determination to fight for the right thing.
“I don’t want the next generation of girls to feel they’re any less deserving of a place in the spotlight than their male counterparts,” she explains. “We’re way past that in 2024.”
It’s a facet of her personality that perhaps paints a picture of what comes next in Guest’s already storied career.
“My values are something that have really helped me stay motivated and grounded, and really helped my performances too,” she confirms. “Those issues that matter to me, they’re so heavily ingrained in my values, and that’s absolutely where I’d like to position myself. I really want to pay my experiences forward, whether that’s being available to give Reece [Bell] or Vici [Palla] or anyone from the next generation of girls coming through some advice and guidance, or adding to the literature on women’s experiences in Alpine skiing through my academic work.”
In the short term, though, her goals are a little more personal. “I’ve got two essays due this month [Guest is in the final year of her Psychology degree], exams in May and June, and then I’m going on holiday! I’ve just been saying yes to everything I’ve been invited to. That’s something I’ve never been able to do before, and that’s been really nice.
“I spoke a lot with my psychologist about it, and I just need to look after Charlie the person a little bit more over the next 12 months, and make me the person a bit more of a priority as I start to move away rom being Charlie the athlete.
“It’s a bit terrifying, but at the same time I’m really excited about that too.”
You suspect she’s right to be excited. We all should be: after all, there’s surely only so long that someone with Guest’s values, experience, and love for the sport can stay away from continuing to make the sort of impact that’s been her career signature.
Action-packed GB Alpine Championships delivers week of high-quality racing
Leo Karavasili, Molly Butler, and Freddy Carrick-Smith landed overall titles at an action-packed GB Alpine FIS and NJC Championships in Tignes and Val d’Isere.
Despite challenging weather conditions, with some racing lost to heavy snowfall, Championships organisers and volunteers with support from coaches, athletes, and team staff were able to deliver a highly-competitive Championships featuring gritty and high-quality Alpine racing.
At the end of the week’s competition, Leo Karavasili headed up the Men’s Overall standings to take the Fedden Trophy with Lewis Parton in second and William Freear in third, while Molly Butler topped both the Women’s Overall (Lilywhite Trophy) standings and the Women’s National Junior Championships rankings to take the Snowsport Scotland Trophy. Freddy Carrick-Smith, meanwhile, secured the Men’s Overall National Junior Championships Aberdeen Millennium Trophy.
Among the week’s race winners were Reece Bell (Women’s NC Slalom and Evie Pinching Salver), Laurie Taylor (Men’s NC Slalom and National Ski Union Cup), Giselle Gorringe (Women’s NC GS, British Ski Club of Great Britain Challenge Cup), and Freddy Carrick-Smith (Men’s NC GS British Ski Club of Great Britain Challenge Cup and Men’s GS UVEX Trophy).
Zac Brunner, meanwhile, was awarded the Craig MacFie Foundation Award, in memory of Craig MacFie’s life and legacy
Overall Standings
Men’s National Championships Combined – Fedden Trophy
- Leo Karavasili
- Lewis Parton
- William Freear
Men’s National Championships Non-Team – McLeod Trophy
- Lewis Parton
Men’s National Championships U18 – Spence Trophy
- Lewis Parton
Women’s National Championships Combined – Lilywhite Trophy
- Molly Butler
- Charlotte Holmes
- Holly Tutt
Women’s National Championships Non-Team – McLeod Trophy
- Holly Tutt
Women’s National Championships U18 – Ingham’s Hotel Plan Trophy
- Molly Butler
Boys National Junior Championships Combined – Aberdeen Millennium Trophy
- Freddy Carrick-Smith
- Zak Carrick-Smith
- Joe Grieve
Girls National Junior Championships Combined – Snowsport Scotland Trophy
- Molly Butler
- Maisie Blythe
- Charlotte Holmes
Craig MacFie Foundation Award
- Zac Brunner
Alpine trailblazer, Charlie Guest, announces retirement after 11 years on World Cup circuit
Charlie Guest has announced her retirement from Alpine skiing following the conclusion of the 2023/24 season. Charlie, who competed at her first World Cup in 2013 went on to represent Team GB at two Olympic Winter Games, and was part of the British team that finished fifth in Team Parallel in 2018 in PyeongChang.
One of the most influential British skiers of her generation, Charlie scored six World Cup top-20 finishes, including a 13th place in the Schladming Slalom World Cup in January 2022, part of a sequence of three top-20 World Cup finishes in January 2022.
In 2019, Charlie became the first British woman to ever win an Alpine Europa Cup race with victory at the Folgaria EC, and went on to record two more EC victories in Hasliberg in January 2020 and Reiteralm in March 2021. As recently as this season, Charlie was still delivering EC podiums with third place in Zell am See in January and second position in Malbun in February.
Speaking after news of Charlie’s retirement, GB Snowsport Alpine Discipline Committee Chair, Juliet Foster, said:
“Charlie has been one of the most influential British skiers of her generation, and her presence at the highest levels of Alpine skiing for more than a decade speaks for itself. As part of the Parallel team that made history for Britain at the PyeongChang Games, Charlie has created a lasting legacy in British Alpine skiing.
“It’s going to be really strange seeing a Women’s Slalom World Cup line-up without Charlie at the heart of the action, but her impact on Britain’s place in the sport will be an enduring one.”
Charlie Guest Career Highlights:
- February 2009 – Represents Britain at European Youth Olympic Festival in Szczyrk, competing in Slalom and Giant Slalom
- March 2012 – Wins British National Junior Championships Downhill race in Meribel
- January 2013 – Makes World Cup debut in Flachau Slalom
- March 2013 – Takes victory in two National Junior Championships (Super-G, Slalom) and one National Championships (Super Combined) race in Meribel
- February 2015 – Makes World Championships debut in Vail / Beaver Creek, competing in Slalom and Giant Slalom
- February 2018 – Selected to represent Team GB at PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games, competing in Slalom and Team Parallel
- March 2019 – Wins Folgaria Slalom EC, becoming first British woman to ever win an Alpine EC event
- December 2019 – Records first World Cup top-30 with 29th place in St. Moritz Parallel Slalom World Cup
- January 2022 – Achieves career high individual World Cup result with 13th place in Schladming Slalom World Cup
- February 2022 – Competes in second Olympic Winter Games in Beijing finishing in 21st place in Slalom
- February 2024 – Takes final EC podium with second place in Malbun Slalom EC
Charlotte Bankes was in flying form in Sierra Nevada, while in Aspen, USA, the Men’s Slalom team made history
Bankes seals dual podiums in Sierra Nevada SBX
Charlotte Bankes was back to her dominant best at the Sierra Nevada Snowboard Cross World Cup, with Gold and Bronze medal performances over the weekend’s back-to-back races.
Coming into the weekend fresh from victory at the Gudauri World Cup last month, Bankes was sensational in Saturday’s races, cruising through amid difficult conditions to secure her second solo victory of the season. Having looked set fair for a repeat performance in Sunday’s second World Cup, Bankes found herself in a close battle with Chloe Trespeuch of France during the Big Final, which saw both riders fall while contesting first spot, with Bankes getting back up to seal Bronze.
The results push Bankes up to fourth in the overall standings after a difficult first half of the season, closing in on Australia’s Josie Baff in third spot.
Ryding and Taylor make British Slalom History
The Aspen Slalom World Cup saw Dave Ryding and Laurie Taylor make British Slalom history, as two British skiers finished in the top-10 in a Slalom World Cup race for the first time ever. Amid a weekend of heavy snowfall, which saw the race start time pushed back following blizzard conditions the night before, both delivered a superb display of Slalom racing, with Taylor smashing his previous personal best to take an astonishing eighth place finish.
Ryding, coming into the second run from fifth spot, ended up taking seventh for his fourth top-10 finish of the season and the 29th of his career, while Taylor delivered a second run for the ages, the fastest among the field, to pull himself up from 19th spot at the turn.
The result makes it the first time Britain has had two skiers in an Alpine World Cup top-10 since Gina Hawthorn and Divina Galica finished in the top-10 in March and April 1968 at the Aspen and Heavenly Valley GS World Cups.
Musgrave in top-10 and Young & Clugnet top-10 at successful Levi World Cup
Andrew Musgrave added another top-10 finish to his impressive 2023/24 season with eighth place at the Levi World Cup 20km C. The result, Musgrave’s eighth top-10 of the season, puts the 33-year-old at fifth in the overall season Distance race rankings and continues an impressive year, which also saw him take the fourth World Cup podium of his career.
In the Team Sprint, Andrew Young and James Clugnet finished in a credible 19th spot adding to their impressive body of Team Sprint performances in recent years.
Zoe Atkin and Jaz Taylor take podiums; Cross-Country Team seal dual top-10s
Atkin takes dual podiums at Calgary Snow Rodeo
Zoe Atkin made it a perfect podium season at the Calgary Snow Rodeo double header World Cup, with Silver and Bronze medal performances on the Women’s Freeski Halfpipe.
Coming into the 2023/24 season with three World Cup podiums under her belt, Atkin showed astonishing form across the 2023/24 season to more than double her career World Cup podium count, taking three third place finishes before rounding out with second place in the final of the season’s Halfpipe World Cup contests. With a second place from X Games Aspen already under her belt, the performances have marked out Atkin as one of Britain’s most consistently exciting performers.
The results left the 21-year-old third in the overall standings and with a growing reputation as one to watch as the clock ticks inexorably towards Milan-Cortina 2026.
Cross-Country Squad take top-10s in Minneapolis
The Minneapolis Cross-Country World Cup saw a season’s best performance from James Clugnet with eighth spot in the Sprint Free race. In his first solo top-10 since December 2022, Clugnet looked in excellent form coming through just outside of qualification for the Final, with a Semi-Final time of 2:56.63.
The 10km Free saw Andrew Musgrave take his seventh top-10 spot of the season with a ninth place finish, hot off the back of seventh place at the previous weekend’s Canmore World Cup in the 20km C Mass Start. Also in the 10km F, Joe Davies grabbed a first top-20 career World Cup placing with 16th spot, making him the youngest finisher inside the top-20.
Taylor secures seventh podium of season in Al
Jaz Taylor took a seventh World Cup podium of a remarkable season with third place in the Parallel Sprint World Cup in Al, Norway. In a weekend with a mammoth four World Cup competitions, Taylor’s run of fourth, third, seventh, and eighth made it a scarcely believable ten top-10 finishes in eleven World Cup races, leaving her atop the standings in the overall Telemark World Cup rankings, ahead of Norway’s Goril Strom Eriksen and France’s Laly Chaucheprat.
BCST do country proud in 2024 International Races
The British Children’s Ski Team delivered some outstanding results across the 2024 International Race calendar, delivering five podiums and a further eight top-10s amid a series of remarkable performances.
At the Trofeu Borrufa Races in Andorra, Brooke Baxter (U16 W) and Harrison Adkins (U16 M) both took a pair of Slalom podiums, with Baxter finishing second and third as well as fifth in GS, with Adkins third twice.
Louisa McIntosh (U16 W) finished just behind Baxter in the second of the U16 W Slalom races, coming in fourth position, Lucas Cross (U14 M) secured an excellent top-10 in GS, while Audrey Curtis (U14 W) was in the top-10 twice with seventh in Slalom and sixth in GS.
The Skiinterkirterium races in Czechia delivered a podium for Isabella Sullivan (U16 W) in Slalom, while Edward Lloyd (U14 M – tenth, GS), Jessica Freear (U14 W – eighth GS, seventh SL), Sam Kingsley (U16 M – tenth SL), Alexander Thomas (U14 M – eighth SL), Amelia Pietrzak (U16 W – fifth SL), Alice Bond (U16 W – seventh SL) and Gracie Duncan (U14 W – sixth SL) all secured superb top-10 placings.
Finally, at the highly contested Alpecimbra races in Folgaria, Italy, British athletes secured five top-20 finishes through Sebastien Anthony (U14 M – 15th GS), Lily Flitton (U14 W – 19th GS, 13th SL), and Hamish Blyth (U16 M – 11th SL, 15th GS).
Huge congratulations to every member of the BCST for some exceptional performances, representing the future of British Alpine Skiing in the best possible light.
Invitation published for British season-closer
Entries for the GB Alpine Championships and British U14 and U16 Alpine Championships are now open, with the provisional race programme and invitations published this week.
Opening with the arrival of competitors on 23 March, the National Championships and National Junior Championships will take place across Tignes and Val d’Isere from 24-31 March, while the U14 and U16 Championships will take place exclusively in Tignes between 1-5 April.
All information on the provisional Race Calendar and the Race Entry system can be found at the GB Alpine Championships hub on the GB Snowsport website.
The Championships this year are being generously supported by Minerva Virtual Academy.