Snow+Rock Results Round-Up: Musgrave and Gerken Schofield light up World Cup stage

Lillehammer and Ruka saw excellent World Cup results on an exciting weekend for British athletes

Andrew Musgrave’s stunning start to the 2022-23 season continued in Lillehammer with fourth place in Friday’s 10km Free giving him his best result since the 15km F Mass Start in Oberstdorf in December 2021. Coming in just 12.5s behind race winner Iver Tildheim Andersen and only 3.4s off a podium spot, the race continues a superb start to the season, with Musgrave’s weekend also returning 30^th and 39^th place finishes in the Sprint Free and 20km Classic Mass Start races.

Racing in the first World Cup contests of his career, Joe Davies took an excellent 43^rd in the 10km F, placing him seventh among the U23 group, before a DNF in the 20km C Mass Start, while Andrew Young and James Clugnet secured 23^rd and 27^th in the Sprint Free, and 41^st and 52^nd in the 20km C Mass Start respectively, capping a promising weekend for the Cross-Country squad now racing as part of Team Aker Daehlie.

In the first Moguls World Cup of the season, Makayla Gerken Schofield topped the British bill in Ruka with an exceptional 10^th place finish. Makayla, who lit up the Olympics in Beijing with the best ever result for a British Moguls skier at an Olympic Winter Games, came in between the Japanese pair Haruka Ihara and Hinako Tomitaka to take the fifth World Cup top-10 finish of her career. Leonie Gerken Schofield lodged a promising 23^rd place, while in the Men’s competition Mateo Jeannesson took 23^rd, Thomas Gerken Schofield 35^th and Will Feneley 42^nd spot.

The opening Snowboard Cross World Cup of the season saw a weekend of frustration for British athletes. In the women’s races, defending Crystal Globe holder Charlotte Bankes looked in typically exceptional form qualifying for finals in first spot, but was forced to withdraw before the beginning of the final having suffered with sickness throughout the weekend. Huw Nightingale, meanwhile, took 45^th spot one place ahead of the USA’s Beijing Olympic Winter Games Team Gold medallist Nick Baumgartner.

A difficult week for the Alpine squad saw a flurry of DNFs, with Roy Steudle, Giselle Gorringe, Owen Vinter, Samuel Todd-Saunders and Charlie Raposo all landing DNFs in Beaver Creek, Zinal and Gurgl. Gorringe did manage to take a 54^th spot in the second of the EC Super G races in Zinal in the first EC race of her career.