GB Snowsport is delighted to confirm a 22-athlete Park & Pipe squad for the 2024/25 season
- Three athletes make debut appearances in GB Snowsport squad lists
- World Cup squads delivered nine World Cup and two X Games podiums in 2023/24 season
Comprising fifteen snowboarders and seven skiers across Freestyle Snowboard and Freeski disciplines, this season also sees the B Squad relaunched as a Next Generation squad featuring some of the world’s brightest young talent in Park & Pipe snowsport.
A World Cup Squad featuring 2023/24 season podium holders Mia Brookes (Freestyle Snowboard, three World Cup podiums, one X Games podium), Zoe Atkin (Freeski Halfpipe, four World Cup podiums, one X Games podium), and Kirsty Muir (Freeski, two World Cup podiums) also sees Freestyle Snowboard Big Air World Junior Champion Txema Mazet-Brown selected for the first time having completed a nation transfer to the British system ahead of the 2024/25 season, alongside Freestyle Snowboard World Junior Championships podium holder, Emily Rothney.
The remainder of the World Cup Squad will see the returning Billy Cockrell, Matty Cox, Maisie Hill, Charlie Lane, Katie Ormerod, Ethan Smith, and Siddhartha Ullah in the Snowboard ranks, and Tom Greenway, Tyler Harding, Chris McCormick and James Pouch in Freeski.
The Next Generation Squad features two new athletes in Freeski Halfpipe skier Liam Richards, and 10-year-old Freestyle Snowboarder Riley Sharpe, who joins the programme on a training basis as he currently falls below the age threshold to compete in FIS competitions, with Roahan Duncan, Lenny Fenning, Teiva Hamaini, and Mia Langridge also selected.
Full Squad Selections
World Cup Squad
- Zoe Atkin – Freeski, Halfpipe
- Mia Brookes – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Billy Cockrell – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Matty Cox – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Tom Greenway – Freeski, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Tyler Harding – Freeski, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Maisie Hill – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Charlie Lane – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Txema Mazet-Brown* – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Chris McCormick – Freeski, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Kirsty Muir – Freeski, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Katie Ormerod – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- James Pouch – Freeski, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Emily Rothney – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Ethan Smith – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Siddhartha Ullah – Freestyle Snowboard, Halfpipe
Next Generation Squad
- Roahan Duncan – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Lenny Fenning – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Teiva Hamaini – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Mia Langridge – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
- Liam Richards* – Freeski, Halfpipe
- Riley Sharpe* ** – Freestyle Snowboard, Slopestyle & Big Air
* New Selection
** Selected on training basis only
Charlotte Bankes’ run of hot form continued, while Mia Brookes and Zoe Atkin impressed at Dew Tour
Bankes takes Gold in Cortina
Charlotte Bankes’ sensational recent form continued at this weekend’s Cortina Snowboard Cross World Cup, with the reigning Crystal Globe holder taking her third solo victory and fourth individual podium of the season.
In a scintillating display of Snowboard Cross racing, Bankes took top spot in qualifying and followed that up with first place finishes at Quarter and Semi Final stages, before putting in another outstanding performance to clinch victory.
Bankes now sits third in the overall season standings on 427 points, just 95 points behind Chloe Trespeuch in top spot.
Brookes and Atkin on fire at Dew Tour 20th anniversary competition
Mia Brookes and Zoe Atkin both took podiums at Dew Tour as the invitational event celebrated its 20th anniversary.
Brookes, competing in the Snowboard Streetstyle, put in a dominant display to further enhance her reputation as one of the world’s great rail riders, taking victory and best trick in commanding fashion. Atkin, meanwhile, added yet another podium to her season collection with Silver in the Freeski Superpipe contest, with her score of 94.00 coming just short of Eileen Gu’s 96.33 in first place, while also tying for highest amplitude recorded at 12’3”.
Gerken Schofield into top-10 in Almaty
Makayla Gerken Schofield notched their second top-10 of the season with tenth spot at the Almaty Moguls World Cup. After an injury-impacted season, Gerken Schofield’s tenth place finish marked their first Single Moguls top-10 of the season and eighth overall, as they looked to be getting back towards the form that saw them record seven top-10 finishes including a podium in the 2022/23 season, while they also recorded a 16th place finish in Dual Moguls.
Mateo Jeannesson finished just outside of the top-10 in both Single and Dual Moguls taking 23rd and 21st spots respectively.
Alpine and Para Alpine circuits fall victim to climate conditions
The Men’s Slalom and Para Alpine races scheduled for Kranjska Gora were cancelled owing to poor snow conditions amid on-going warmer weather conditions across Europe. The cancellations mean the end of Billy Major and Laurie Taylor’s Slalom World Cup seasons, while Dave Ryding will go on to compete at the Slalom Final in Saalbach. Para Alpine will be seeking to reschedule their own Finals, pending the outcome of negotiations with alternate venues.
Freestyle Snowboarder imperious in Streestyle Rail Jam contest
Mia Brookes’ stunning sequence of recent results continued at her Dew Tour debut with victory in the Women’s Streetstyle competition.
Leading from the off, Brookes’ third run of the first heat also scored the Best Trick award for her switch boardslide switch-up to frontside boardslide 270 out, further enhancing her reputation as one of the best rail riders in contemporary snowboarding.
Mia’s season will now see her return to Europe for the final Freestyle Snowboard World Cup contests of the season, in a. year which has already seen her land X Games Gold, and the Big Air Crystal Globe alongside wider recognition at the Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year and BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards.
British X Games Medallists set to feature at legendary contest series
Zoe Atkin and Mia Brookes are both set to feature at this year’s Dew Tour when it gets underway in Copper Mountain this week.
Atkin, who took podium finishes at each of her World Cup and X Games appearance this season is set to feature in the Superpipe contest, while Freestyle Snowboard Big Air Crystal Globe winner Brookes will take part in the Streestyle rail jam competition.
Ahead of the competition’s start, Freestyle Snowboard Coach Ben Kinnear gave us his insight into Dew Tour 2024:
“Dew Tour is a long standing invitational event that holds great value and respect within the freestyle snowboard community. It’s the 20th anniversary this year and we know that Mia is stoked to be invited to ride.
“The event Mia is competing in is called Streetstyle and is a large rail-only course made up of four major rail sections with loads of different options. It should be a great event to watch and we know Mia has the rail technicality, variety and execution to put on a real show.
“She then packs her bags and travels straight to Tignes for the next FIS Slopestyle World Cup the following week.”
Dew Tour 2024 gets underway tomorrow (Friday 8 March) with Mia and Zoe both in action on day one of the competition.
Freestyle Snowboarder recognised following comeback from injury
Katie Ormerod has been named British Elite Athletes Association Athletes’ Athlete of the Month for January 2024, following her return to competition at the Laax Open World Cup.
The Award, which is voted for by athletes from across Britain’s elite sport community, recognises the efforts made by Ormerod in her recovery from serious injury and on-going infections, which she detailed in an exclusive interview with GB Snowsport last month.
Speaking to the BEAA after being named winner, Katie said:
“It means so much after going through everything wth my bone infection, to getting back to competing, and then knowing that my fellow athletes have voted for me means a lot. I know probably a lot of them have been in similar situations.
“We all understand how it is, so to be acknowledged for finally getting back to competing again feels amazing.”
Freestyle Snowboarder celebrated for return to competition
Katie Ormerod has been nominated for the British Elite Athletes Association’s Athletes’ Athlete of the Month Award for January.
Having marked her return to competition after almost two years of injury and illness rehabilitation at the Laax World Cup, Ormerod secured a top-12 finish and now finds herself acknowledged by her athlete peers.
Ormerod is nominated alongside shooting’s Dean Bale, bobsleigh’s Leon Greenwood, and hockey player Katie Robertson.
The winner of this month’s award will be confirmed shortly by the British Elite Athletes’ Association.
Back in World Cup competition after almost two years of recovery, we catch up with Freestyle Snowboard trailblazer Katie Ormerod
There were 660 days between the moment Katie Ormerod dropped in for the Silvaplana World Cup Finals in March 2022 (finishing in eighth place, between Finland’s Eveliina Taka and Switzerland’s Bianca Gisler), and the moment she stood back in a World Cup starting gate for the first time in almost two years at this season’s Laax World Cup.
For an athlete who was for so long the poster child of British Freestyle Snowboarding and whose record of eleven World Cup podiums remains a key marker of what British Snowboarding can achieve, the wait felt interminable. But first and foremost, above the frustration, was fear.
“It was a really scary time,” Ormerod says over the phone in the gap between the Laax and Mammoth World Cups. “Up until we knew what it was, I thought my body was failing. I’m only 26, and all I could think about was ‘why is this happening to me?’, or ‘am I ever going to get to snowboard again?’”
Some context: having battled back from a brutal injury in training for the PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games in 2018 (“I was in shock that it was possible to feel so much pain”, she told the Guardian in 2022), Ormerod’s injury nightmares must have felt like a bad memory. Until a routine operation threw up complication after complication.
“All I knew was that one day, I woke up in so much pain, and my surgical scars had opened up. I didn’t know what it was at all, everything came totally out of the blue.” What followed was a nightmarish process of intervention, elimination, assessment, until finally a full diagnosis was made.
“It was a really long time,” she recalls. “Months and months, and multiple surgeries, before we finally found out it was a bone infection. I’m just really grateful to my surgeon at the Specialist Infection Unit; he got straight to the bottom of things, and fixed it for me, and gave me a way back to doing what I love.”
660 days later, when the time finally arrived, how did she feel?
“It just felt like I’d got my normal life back, if that makes sense,” she says. “Once you’re in the start gate, about to drop in, you just get in the zone, and for me I was right back into competition mode.” The importance of competition is something that comes up time and again as we speak. “I’ve always been a competitor, and I’ve always had that natural competitive instinct. Getting back to it at Laax and landing a good run, finishing 12th on my first World Cup back, it was a really good start for me, and it gives me something really positive to build on for the rest of the season and going into Olympic qualifying next year.”
Ah. The “O” word. I wasn’t going to bring up the Olympics, I tell her, but for Ormerod it’s never something far from her mind.
“I haven’t had the best Olympics experiences so far,” she laughs, “so I’m really driven to get to Milan-Cortina and have a good time there.” Does she spend much time thinking about it? “To be honest, the Olympics, it’s always on my mind. It’s like I said: I’m a competitor, and the Olympics is just the biggest event of all of them.”
It’s almost a startling thing to hear, given what Ormerod’s endured on the Olympic stage to date. First, a shattering injury that took her from the pinnacle of the Team GB limelight to agonising recovery before she got to fulfil her Olympic ambitions in PyeongChang in 2018, then the startling, isolating experience that was Beijing 2022. “It was really lonely,” she recalls. “It was nobody’s fault, but with covid and not being able to mix with others, and so many of my friends being on the ski team, it was really, really lonely. It’s such a big event, and I wanted to perform my best, but away from that support system with my friends and teammates around me, I really struggled to be honest.”
Thankfully, for Ormerod, the clouds are burning away. The competitive instinct is back, she’s got a roadmap in mind – “I’m planning to do every Slopestyle World Cup this season, and I really want to get into Finals” – and, perhaps most importantly, she’s back among friends doing what she loves.
“The team is really important to me,” she says. “All that time I was recovering, nor being a part of that team, not being with my best friends – your whole life changes. It really sucked.”
“But it’s so good being back with everyone now. The first trip away this season [a training camp in New Zealand over the summer] was probably the most amazing trip of my life. Just being back riding with my friends, and training, being back to normal… it was the most amazing feeling.”
For British snowsport fans, seeing Ormerod back on the start list and ready to drop in is an amazing feeling too. She’s the 26-year-old veteran. The supremely stylish rider. And a beacon of excellence for a generation of British snowsport athletes. We should all be grateful to have her back.
Katie Ormerod is next due to compete at the Mammoth Slopestyle World Cup this week.
Katie Ormerod Biography:
- Born: 1997
- Discipline: Freestyle Snowboard
- Squad: World Cup Squad
- Hometown: Brighouse
Mia Brookes and Zoe Atkin brought their A Games to X Games 2024, while there were Para Alpine podiums to celebrate in Veysonnaz
Brookes and Atkin take Gold and Silver in Aspen
Mia Brookes and Zoe Atkin continued Britain’s proud record at X Games with medals in Freestyle Snowboard Slopestyle and Freeski Superpipe at the 2024 edition of the contest.
Brookes, the second youngest athlete at the invitational event, got the Games off to a stunning start with victory in the Women’s Freestyle competition. Such was Brookes’ dominance of the event that any of her three runs would have scored highly enough to take victory, with flawless rail sections, a Cab 12 on her highest scoring run, and a Cab 14 on her final run.
In the Women’s Freeski Superpipe, Zoe Atkin delivered a super clean display of Halfpipe skiing that included the highest amplitude recorded on the night to take Silver behind Eileen Gu, and back up the Gold medal that she won at X Games 2023.
British interest rounded out with a solid fourth place finish for Brookes in the Freestyle Snowboard Big Air competition.
Fitzpatrick and Guest take Para Alpine Podiums in Veysonnaz
Menna Fitzpatrick and Katie Guest added two more World Cup podiums and two FIS podium to their season tally in a busy week of competition in Veysonnaz. Bronze medals in World Cup Giant Slalom and Super G races were followed with Gold and Silver in FIS Super G competitions to round out a successful week of racing in the Swiss resort.
In the Women’s Seated classification, Shona Brownlee was also in action with a pair of fifth place finishes.
Taylor adds fifth podium of season in Melchsee-Frutt
Jaz Taylor’s remarkable Telemark World Cup campaign continued with a fifth podium of the season in the Melchsee-Frutt Classic World Cup. With third place in the first of the weekend’s competition, Taylor secured her first Classic podium since March 2022, further consolidating top spot in the Telemark overall rankings, where she sits 135 points clear of France’s Lily Chaucheprat. In the Men’s competition, Timote Gough was also in action, with 14th place in the Classic the pick of his results.
And the rest…
In Ski Cross, Ollie Davies made it through to the 1/8 Finals stages at the St. Moritz World Cup to take 20th spot while Scott Johns, on World Cup debut, finished in 58th place. The St. Moritz Snowboard Cross World Cup saw Charlotte Bankes finish just outside the top-10 with an 11th place finish, while Huw Nightingale took 55th spot.
In Moguls, Makayla Gerken Schofield continued their comeback from a knee injury with 22nd place in the Waterville World Cup, while Mateo Jeannesson finished 24th in the Dual Moguls event.
In Cross-Country, James Clugnet sealed his best World Cup result of the season with 20th place in the Sprint F World Cup in Goms and 26th in the 20km F Mass Start, with Andrew Musgrave finishing 12th in the latter.
Mia Brookes took a sensational Gold Medal at X Games in a breathtaking Women’s Slopestyle contest
Mia Brookes delivered another stunning performance in an already record-breaking season to take Gold at X Games 2024 in a high-calibre Women’s Slopestyle event.
Taking victory ahead of the Japanese pair of Kokomo Murase and Reira Iwabuchi, Mia’s second run capped with a Cab 12 was enough to secure a spectacular victory in one of the world’s biggest Snowsport competitions, while she also landed the Cab 1440 which made history at the 2023 Freestyle World Championships in her third and final run.
More to follow…