End of an era as France's Midol brothers retire from ski cross World Cup
May 19, 2023·Ski Cross
It’s the end of an era for the French ski cross team, as this month both Bastien and Jonathan of the history-making Midol brothers announced that they would be retiring from World Cup competition.
The most successful siblings in the history of the ski cross World Cup, both the 35-year-old Jonathan and the 32-year-old Bastien have more than 120 World Cup starts to their credit, and both were key members of the French squad through their most productive decade-plus of action at the highest level.
Overall, Bastien was the most successful of the two brothers, racking up five World Cup victories and 20 podiums, while also earning Voss 2013 World Championships bronze and the 2017/18 ski cross World Cup crystal globe.
While Jonathan’s World Cup career was slightly less storied than Bastien’s, with seven podiums and two victories, the elder Midol holds the trump card in his Sochi 2014 Olympic bronze medal win.
Jonathan’s bronze was part of a historic French sweep of the ski cross podium there in Sochi, marking just the second time any nation had swept an Olympic Freestyle ski podium (coming just seven days after the first such occurrence, in men’s slopestyle skiing) and the first and only time a nation swept the Olympic ski cross podium.
However, perhaps the most memorable moment in the Midol brothers career came in World Cup competition at Innichen/San Candido (ITA) in the 2018/19 season, where Jonathan and Bastien went shoulder-to-shoulder through the bottom half of the course before Jonathan swept across the line for his first World Cup victory with his brother hot on his heels in second place.
It was a magical moment and the first time siblings had shared the steps of a ski cross World Cup podium, and while it would quickly be followed up at the next day’s race with Bastien finishing second and Jonathan in third, those two races would the only occurrences of the two ending up in the top-3 together.
We thank Jonathan and Bastien for all the great racing and the memories, and wish them all the best in their future endeavours!
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