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Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale took Snowboard Cross World Cup victory on the season’s first week of SBX action with a sensational display of racing speed and tactics.
The 2023 Team SBX World Champions raced brilliantly throughout Sunday’s event, qualifying in second spot from the Quarter Final stage before victory in the Semi Final saw them through to a Big Final showdown against teams representing Italy, France, and Germany.
Sitting in third position after the men’s run, Bankes then dominated the women’s run to seal victory ahead of Italy in second and France in third.
In the individual competitions, Bankes marked her first appearance since sustaining a broken collarbone to take ninth spot, while in the Men’s contest, Nightingale finished 34th and Max Vardy took 37th on his World Cup debut.
Zoe Atkin marked her first appearance of the season with silver in the Secret Garden Halfpipe World Cup. The reigning Halfpipe World Champion skied brilliantly in challenging conditions to lead the standings after the first run, before she was overhauled by China’s Eileen Gu by a margin of 1.50 points.
Earlier, the men’s competition saw Gus Kenworthy and Sam Gaskin finish 34th and 35th respectively, while Siddhartha Ullah came 30th in the Men’s Snowboard competition.
James Clugnet and Andrew Musgrave put in superb showings amid a strong team performance in Davos on the latest leg of the Cross-Country World Cup. Clugnet’s tenth place finish in the Men’s SP F was followed by sixth place for Musgrave in 10km F to give both athletes their best finish of the season so far. Earlier, the Team Sprint had seen both Clugnet and Andrew Young and Anna Pryce and Tabitha Williams finish in 17th, just outside of Finals, while Pryce was also on impressive form to take 35th in the Sprint Free, and Young 41st in the 10km F. Joe Davies, meanwhile, made his first appearance of the season taking an excellent 17th place in the 10km F.
Scott Meenagh‘s first Para Biathlon World Cup showing of the season yielded a brace of top-10 finishes alongside an 11th place in the 12.5km Individual. The highlight came with a 5th place in the Sprint discipline which saw Meenagh in striking distance of a podium before a crash and damaged ski held back further progress, before following up with an 8th place in the Sprint Pursuit.
A challenging course delivered two top-30 finishes for the Men’s Alpine Slalom team, with Laurie Taylor finishing 12th and Billy Major 24th. With three Brits in the top-15 after the first run omens looked good for a strong showing, but course challenges saw a DNF for Dave Ryding while Taylor and Major both battled through to cement their top-30 standings.
Luca Carrick-Smith and Freddy Carrick-Smith both recorded first run DNFs in the Slalom and Giant Slalom respectively.
Ollie Davies was pick of the Brits in the Ski Cross Val Thorens World Cup finishing 21st in the second of the back-to-back World Cups, taking 46th in the first race. Scott Johns finished 53rd and 57th.
Fred Warburton and guide James Hannan were Britain’s only representatives in the Steinach Para Alpine World Cup, finishing 7th in Alpine Combined, 8th in the SG Speed Event, and 8th and 7th in back-to-back SG World Cups.
