British Snowboard Cross star in superlative form to take 2022/23 overall title, while more British stars shine as World Cup season draws to a close
Britain’s Charlotte Bankes took the second Snowboard Cross Crystal Globe of her career on a dramatic weekend of World Cup action on Canada’s Mt. St. Anne circuit.
Leading the standings going into the final weekend of the 2022/23 World Cup season, Bankes’ sixth straight race win in the weekend’s first race set her on the way to defending the title she first secured last season, with victory secured with a fifth place finish in the last race of the season.
Chloe Trespeuch’s second place finish in the first race left the French racer needing victory in the final competition to overhaul Bankes in the overall standings, with her eventual third place leaving the British star in top spot with 723 World Cup points to Trespeuch’s 650.
The result capped another remarkable season for Bankes, which saw her take victory in six of the nine World Cup meets, as well as a World Championships title in Team Snowboard Cross alongside Huw Nightingale.
Bankes’ back-to-back titles make her the first women’s Snowboard Cross athlete to defend the Crystal Globe since Canada’s Dominique Maltais who took a remarkable four consecutive titles between 2010/11 and 2013/14.
There was further success for Bankes’ Team Snowboard Cross teammate, Huw Nightingale, whose 23rd and 17th place finishes delivered the best World Cup results of his career to date, with the 21-year-old demonstrating impressive progress across the season.
Elsewhere, the Freestyle World Cup season also drew to a close in Silvaplana, with Mia Brookes taking fourth place in Freestyle Snowboard Slopestyle, while in Freeski Slopestyle Kirsty Muir took sixth, Tyler Harding tenth, and Chris McCormick 14th with both Harding and McCormick’s results their best of the season. Brookes’ result, meanwhile, secured third place for her in the overall Snowboard Slopestyle standings on a World Cup debut season capped most memorably by her World Championships title in Bakuriani.
In the Moguls Junior World Championships, Mateo Jeannesson took a brilliant third place in Dual Moguls to back up his fifth place in Single Moguls in a season which has seen the 18-year-old deliver a series of superb performances, while the Telemark World Championships saw Jaz Taylor take a brilliant brace of podiums with third in Classic and second in Parallel Sprint, giving her the best World Championships result of her career.
The Cross-Country squad delivered more impressive 2022/23 results with Andrew Musgrave taking his seventh top-10 place of the season with tenth place in the Lahti World Cup 20km C Mst, while James Clugnet and Andrew Young finished an impressive seventh in the Team Sprint Free in a strong field.