SBX World Cup back in Spain at Baqueira Beret
Mar 01, 2019·Snowboard Cross
Baqueira Beret (ESP) - The FIS Snowboard Cross World Cup is back in sunny Baquiera Beret this weekend for the penultimate event of the 2018/19 season, with qualification runs going down on Friday and finals set to hit the technical Spanish track on Saturday at 13:30 CET.
This will be the seventh-straight season the SBX World Cup makes a stop in Spain, and the second time that Baqueira Beret will host to top-level racing after the resort had its maiden turn as a World Cup venue back in 2015/16. And, with a near-perfect weather forecast throughout the weekend, an impressive, challenging, and expertly maintained course set-up, and the best ladies’ and men of SBX eager to get back in the start gates, it’s shaping up to be a highlight race of the 2018/19 season.
With three competitions in the books so far this season the name at the top of the ladies rankings is a familiar one, as Lindsay Jacobellis (USA) currently holds the number one spot with 2,800 points, after starting the season with two victories and a runner-up result.
Despite being the winningest snowboard cross athlete of all-time, Jacobellis has only won the World Cup overall title twice, with the last victory coming a decade ago in the 2008/09 season. Now 15 years into her World Cup career and still as fiercely competitive as any athlete in snowboarding, you know that Jacobellis has her eyes on a statement win here in Spain at what is inarguably the toughest course the riders have faced so far this season, as she seeks her third crystal globe.
To do so, however, Jacobellis is going to be in tough facing down her two closest rivals on the current World Cup rankings in Eva Samkova (CZE) and Michela Moioli (ITA), with Moioli looking for her first win of the season and Samkova looking to build on the second-place result she earned last time we were in Baqueira.
Like Jacobellis, Samkova has hit the podium in all three races so far this season, and sits just 400 points back of her US rival in the World Cup standings with 2,400 points. Moioli, meanwhile, has 1,600 points, and though the reigning snowboard cross crystal globe winner will have a difficult challenge ahead of her to finish on top again this season, there’s no doubt she’ll make things interesting through the final two races of the season.
Others to watch out for on the ladies’ side include Great Britain’s Charlotte Bankes, Nelly Moenne Loccoz and and Chloe Trespeuch of the French squad, and Lara Casanova of Switzerland.
Over on the men’s SBX World Cup standings currently we have one clear leader in Martin Noerl with 1,650 points, followed by fully nine other athletes all within 400 points of each other, from second-overall Emanuel Perathoner (ITA) with 1,278 points down to 10th place Lukas Pachner (AUT) with 880.
Which is to say that although Noerl is riding high on the basis of a win and a third-place finish in the back-to-back Cervinia competitions to start the season, the race for this season’s men’s SBX crystal globe is still a very wide-open, completely unpredictable affair at this point, and should make for must-see viewing from here on out.
With Noerl the only two-time podium winner so far this season, eight athletes in total have already climbed on to the awards steps in 2018/19, and it seems entirely possible that we could have three completely new faces in the top three again this weekend on a course that is much different than at the previous two venues.
Last time we were in Baqueira Beret it was Alex Pullin (AUS) claiming the victory, with Kevin Hill (CAN) earning the sole podium result of his career so far in second, and Spain’s own Lucas Eguibar rounding out the podium in third.
Pullin hasn’t had a World Cup victory in about a year and a half and had just one podium finish last season, but he continues to hit the top 10 in nearly every competition entered, and perhaps a return to Baqueira is just what he needs to get back to his winning ways.
And as for Eguibar, the 25-year-old has a history of stepping up his game on home soil, as his podium at the last Baqueira competition and a pair of silver medals from the Sierra Nevada 2017 world championships can attest to, so expect big things from him this weekend.
The USA’s Mick Dierdorff comes in Baqueira Beret just a few weeks removed from a double gold medal performance at the Utah 2019 world championships after taking top spot in both the individual competition and the mixed team event with his partner Jacobellis, and with something of a similar course here in Spain to the one we saw in Utah, Dierdorff should be one considered one to watch, as well.
Dierdorff’s young US teammate Jake Vedder, the above-mentioned Perathoner and his Italian teammate Omar Visintin, Hanno Douschan of Austria, Konstantin Schad of Germany…the list of riders with a chance at the podium this weekend goes on an on. Really, the only thing to do is tune in and watch.
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QUICK LINKS
Baqueira Beret data page (start lists, live timing, results)
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