Australia's Brockhoff and Hughes win SBX mixed team gold
Feb 12, 2021·Snowboard Cross
On Friday, the second competition day, at the FIS Snowboard Cross World Championships, athletes entered the start gates for the mixed team event. One male and one female athlete paired up per nation to fight for the World Championship medals.
The competition was set up in a relay format, which means that the men started first and the women left the start gate once the men were in the finish with the respective time margin that the men crossed the finish line. The ranking was decided by the fastest women crossing the finish line.
In 2019 it was team USA with Lindsey Jacobellis and Mick Dierdorff who grabbed the first-ever mixed team World Championship gold medal. Although Dierdorff came in last in the men’s big final heat and Jacobellis had to start last out of the gates, she laid down an incredible performance, overtaking her rivals, and grabbing the win in the end.
The defending World Champions did not participate in this year’s mixed team event, therefore all odds were open for other nations to win gold. It was hard to predict, who could actually be a strong team, since this competition format did only take place for the second time ever after the Utah 2019 World Championships.
All we can say after Friday afternoon is – yes please, we want more competitions like these!
One could see the tension and excitement of the male athletes waiting in the finish, cheering on their team mates, yelling in support for the women to get faster throughout the heat.
Out of nine teams, the remaining ones for the big final were Australia represented by Belle Brockhoff and Jarryd Hughes, USA with Hagen Kearney and Faye Gulini in the gates, France with Julia Pereira de Sousa Mabileau and Leo le Ble Jaques and Italy with silver medallist from the individual competition on Thursday Michela Moioli and team mate Lorenzo Sommariva.
As throughout the whole competition, the four men started out of the gates first, battling through quite some wind gusts, especially at the top part of the section.
At first it was Kearney and Sommariva positioning themselves in first and second position of the heat, but then PyeongChang 2018 Olympic silver medallist Hughes made an impressive move, only to get from third into first position and then on the bottom section of the course, the Aussie was just on fire, shooting over the rollers and into the finish first with the Italian crossing the line second.
Frenchman le Ble Jacques battled it out with the American also only a few metres before the finish line, because for a while it looked like Kearney would hold his third position and the French would be last, but the odds changed, as le Ble Jacques managed to pass the American, only to come in third.
Now it was all eyes on the women, who for once were performing the last heat of the day, opposite to individual competitions. Needless to say, that the guys in the finish could not sit still, but as soon as the gates dropped and the women started, it was constant cheering for their team mates, top to bottom.
Brockhoff was the first one, who’s gate dropped, the Australian did not lose any time and got into the lead with Olympic Champion Moioli chasing after her in second, whereas France’s Julia Pereira de Sousa Mabileau was in third. But not for very long, as she used one kicker to make a tremendous jump landing in an excellent position to take the inside line of a bank and getting into the lead.
However, on her tails, on left and right side were veterans Brockhoff and Moioli, trying to pass the French, while Gulini was still sitting in fourth position.
Heading into the next section of the course, Moioli was able to grab the leading position and stay there, but then it all came down to the bottom roller part of the course again, which was already known as the deliverer of most exciting scenes throughout these World Championships.
Indeed, Brockhoff generated a lot of speed and just went straight for the pass with a super-fast board on her feet and in the end crossed the finish line first making it the first SBX gold medal at World Championships since 2013 and the first-ever mixed team gold medal for Australia.
Moioli came in second, making it a back-to-back podium claiming silver on both competition days and adding to her World Championship medal collection, which now consists of six in total (4 medals in individual competitions and 2 in the mixed team event).
Rounding out the podium and claiming bronze medal was team France with Julia Pereira de Sousa Mabileau crossing the finish line ahead of her American rival Gulini.
To summarize, it was a competition filled with excitement, action, surprises, tactics and some really good team spirit.
“Well, this is as good as it gets! We haven’t raced in a team event before ever. We knew we could do it and we were really confident in our abilities, then we just set out a really good game plan among the two of us and maximized our strengths and I am just lucky to have had such a strong rider like Belle to be riding with,” Jarryd Hughes commented clearly happy about the gold medal.
“I am really stoked to be here, especially after yesterday’s fall, it’s a bit of a redemption, so I am very happy and very excited,” teammate Brockhoff added to the statement.
That is a wrap for two highly successful SBX World Championship competition days here in Idre Fjall. We say thank you to the amazing team of the Idre Fjall organizing committee for this extraordinary event and wish everybody a save trip home.
QUICK LINKS
)
)
