World Champs Idre Fjäll 2021 – Snowboard Cross preview
Feb 08, 2021·Snowboard Cross
It wasn’t an easy path to get here, but the world’s best snowboard cross athletes have made it to Sweden and are ready to get out of the start gate at the premier event of the 2020/21 season – the Idre Fjall 2021 FIS Snowboard Cross World Championships.
Due to the development of the covid-19 pandemic and the implemented measures by the Chinese health authorities and government, the originally scheduled FIS Freestyle, Freeski and Snowboard World Championships in Zhangjiakou (CHN) had to be cancelled earlier this season. However, the disappointment of that news was soon wiped away when the organisers in Idre stepped up to offer a solution for ski and snowboard cross competition at their iconic venue.
Putting in an enormous amount of effort in an extremely short timeframe, the organizing committee in Idre Fjall and the Swedish Ski Association have been able to put together the necessary preparations to host the major event of the FIS Ski and Snowboard Cross season, and the appreciation for their efforts is unanimous across the ski and snowboard cross families.
Although there had never been a Snowboard Cross World Cup event before at the Swedish resort, course builder David Ny and his crew felt comfortable to adapt the track already built for January’s ski cross World Cup to make it suitable for SBX racing, making it possible for the joint FIS Ski and Snowboard Cross World Championships to take place at the same venue on short notice.
The snowboard cross teams have selected athletes who will be representing their nations in the battle for the highly anticipated medals ahead of the big event. Each nation has four spots per gender and the minimum requirement for an athlete to be nominated is 50 FIS points. The defending World Champions are additionally already nominated to represent their respective nations.
Defending champions and who to watch - women
Entering the World Championships as a title defender is Czech snowboard cross ace Eva Samkova. With a double podium, one third and one first place, at the World Cup season opener in Chiesa in Valmalenco (ITA) in January, Samkova showed that she is on top of her game and ready to defend her title.
Although not really in the podium mix throughout last season, Samkova seems to be back just in time for the big event. Samkova has one OWG gold medal from Sochi 2014 and one bronze medal from the PyeongChang 2018 Games to her name. Throw in two SBX crystal globes and the fact that the 27-year-old is currently first in the World Cup standings (tied in first position with the same amount of points as USA’s Faye Gulini at the moment), the odds appear to be leaning in her favour.
Of course, one of her biggest rivals in the sport, Michela Moioli (ITA), will try to stop Samkova from defending her title. The current Olympic Champion has yet to break the World Championship curse, as she has ended up wearing the bronze medal for three consecutive World Champs competitions - at Kreischberg 2015, Sierra Nevada 2017 and Utah 2019. With a season-opening World Cup win on home soil this year and one fourth place on the second of back-to-back competitions in Valmalenco, the three-time SBX crystal globe winner showed that she wants to be in the mix for the medal fight once again this season.
Great Britain’s Charlotte Bankes will be entering the World Champs as the defending silver medallist. Bankes has one individual medal and one team medal to her name, although the team medal is from when she was still competing for the French squad. The dual-citizen has a total of six World Cup podiums on her account, the last one being from 2018, however Bankes showed a strong performance when winning the small final on the second competition day in Valmalenco.
From there it gets a little bit hard to predict who else could be in the mix for the Idre Fjall 2021 medal battle as there has unfortunately been only one stop so far on the SBX World Cup calendar, which has been heavily affected by the circumstances caused by the covid-19 pandemic.
USA’s Faye Gulini showed a super strong performance at the first races of the season with back-to-back second places at the Italian resort. Now sharing first rank at the World Cup standings together with Samkova, that must be quite the confidence boost entering the World Championships.
France’s Chloe Trespeuch, who finished third in the SBX overall rankings in 2019/20 is always one to watch in the hunt for podium spots and medals. With a silver medal from the 2017 Sierra Nevada World Champs and a bronze medal from the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, the French athlete is seeking to be in the medal mix at major events.
Snowboard Cross veteran Lindsey Jacobellis (USA), winningest athlete in SBX, is in possession of five World Championship gold medals in total, the last one being from Sierra Nevada 2017. The exceptional athlete can never be counted out at from any kind of podium, be it the World Cup, Olympic Winter Games or World Championships.
Defending champions and who to watch – men
USA’s Mick Dierdorff is the defending World Champion and also the only one from the Utah 2019 podium to be participating at Idre Fjäll 2021. Silver medallist Hanno Douschan (AUT) retired in the meantime and Italy’s bronze medallist Emanuel Perathoner was out for the season before it even started due to a leg injury, which he is currently recovering from after a successful surgery.
Back to the 2019 gold medallist; Dierdorff is actually double World Champion, as he claimed team gold on home soil with teammate Lindsey Jacobellis at Solitude two years ago.
Dierdorff finished 9th at the second competition day in Valmalenco, so let’s wait to see what the defending World Champion has in store for competition on Swedish soil. As the defending gold medallist the 29-year-old will surely be motivated to step up his game in Idre.
If one had to bet their money, some would probably put it down on two-time SBX crystal globe winner Alessandro Haemmerle from Austria. Although the 27-year-old participated at four World Championships up to date, his best result was fifth place at home in Kreischberg 2015 and a World Champs medal is one that is thus far missing in his trophy collection. With an impressive 20 World Cup podiums until now and the win on race day number two in Valmalenco, the Austrian appears to be in great shape ahead of this week’s big race.
There are however some young gentlemen who showed that they are certainly to be watched out for this year. The first surprise of the season being Glenn de Blois’s win in Valmalenco on the first race day, as he became just the second Dutch snowboard cross athlete ever to grab a World Cup win. De Blois is also currently in the lead at the World Cup standings.
19-year-old Eliot Grondin (CAN) made an impressive entrance to the 2020/21 season, grabbing second place just behind De Blois to claim his second-ever podium. He was also the fastest at time-trial qualifications ahead of the first finals there in Valmalenco.
And then there is Merlin Surget from France, who ended up in second on the podium on Sunday’s Valmalenco race, with only Haemmerle being faster than him.
Veterans like Hagen Kearney (USA), Omar Visintin and Lorenzo Sommariva from Italy cannot be forgotten in the list for strong performances at the season-opener and therefore also need to be mentioned at this point.
As said, after just two back-to-back World Cup competitions this season so far, it will be really interesting to see who has got it in them to battle it out for the World Championship medals this year.
Mixed team title defenders
As mentioned above, the US-team of Mick Dierforff and Lindsey Jacobellis are the reigning World Champions from their home soil event in 2019, which was the inaugural show for this racing format.
Silver medal went to the Italian team of Omar Visintin and Michela Moioli and bronze to Team Germany of Paul Berg and Hanna Ihedioha.
As this will be only the second installment of a mixed team format at a major event, we can’t wait to see which teammates will be strong enough together as a team to grab a medal on the Swedish course. With so few examples of the format there’s next to nothing stats-wise from which to build a prediction. However, this factor of the unknown could actually add some excitement to the competition for the athletes and the spectators at home alike.
Competition programme:
Women’s and men’s qualification: Tuesday, February 9, 2021 at 10:45 CET
Women’s and men’s finals: Thursday, February 11, 2021 at 11:35 CET
Mixed team finals: Friday, February 12, 2021 at 12:30 CET
WATCH LIVE:
Thursday, February 11 at 14:30 CET:
TV: ORF 1 at 15:00 CET (Austria), Eurosport 2 (Europe), CT Sport (Czech Republic), SVT 1 (Sweden), NBC Olympic Channel (USA)
Livestream: FIS Snowboard Youtube channel (geo-restricted, please find list of countries were you will be able to watch HERE), Snow Australia livestream – snow.org.au/live, huste.tv (Slovakia), SVT Play (Sweden),Silknet (Georgia)
Friday, February 12 at 12:30 CET:
TV: ORF Sport+ (Austria), CT Sport (Czech Republic), Sport News (Poland), Match TV (Russia), SRF Info (Switzerland), TRT Spor2 (Turkey), NBC Olympic Channel (USA)
Livestream: FIS Snowboard Youtube channel (geo-restricted, please find list of countries where you will be able to watch HERE), CBC Streaming (Canada), Viasat Sport+ (Denmark, Norway), L’Equipe Web (France), YLE Areena (Finland), huste.tv (Slovakia), SVT Play (Sweden), BBC Sport website (UK)
2021 World Cup leaders:
Women: Eva Samkova (CZE) and Faye Gulini (USA)
Men: Glenn De Blois (NED)
2018 PyeongChang Olympic Champions:
Women: Michela Moioli (ITA)
Men: Pierre Vaultier (FRA – retired)
2019 Utah World Champions
Women: Eva Samkova (CZE)
Men: Mick Dierdorff (USA)
Mixed Team: Mick Dierdorff and Lindsey Jacobellis (USA)
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