Close competition expected at Snowboard Cross World Championships
Mar 26, 2025·Snowboard Cross)
After a winter of hotly contested World Cup races, the best Snowboard Cross riders will converge in St. Moritz, Switzerland, this week for the Engadin 2025 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships.
“What makes the World Championships special is definitely that it’s just one race where you can win it all. The attention is much higher than at a regular World Cup.
“Unfortunately, a World Cup victory is quickly forgotten, but you can call yourself a world champion for a lifetime,” says defending men’s champion Jakob Dusek (AUT).
Each nation is able to send up to four athletes of each gender to compete in Engadin, with the countries of the defending champions – Austria and Czechia – also allowed an extra ‘wild card’ entry.
New women’s champion to be crowned
The 2023 women’s world champion, Eva Adamczyková (CZE), is sitting out the 2025 World Championships after giving birth in December. It will be the first time in three editions of the world championships that Adamczyková does not make the podium, after she won bronze in 2021 and her first world title in 2019.
Five-time world champion Lindsey Jacobellis (USA) is also out after recently announcing her own pregnancy, but 2017 silver medalist Chloé Trespeuch (FRA), another recent mother, is named in the French squad.
Josie Baff (AUS) is the only 2023 women's medalist competing in Engadin. She won silver in Bakuriani aged just 20, and sees herself as a better rider two years on.
“I was relatively new to everything when I came second in Georgia, I had a lot of passion and drive and that hasn’t changed, but I have worked very hard on both the technical and tactical sides of Snowboard Cross since,” she says. “I feel as though my riding and all of the girls’ has improved quite a bit."
In the current season, Baff has been a regular in the World Cup big finals and has reached the podium three times. Arguably her greatest competitors are World Cup leader Bankes and the reigning junior world champion, Lea Casta (FRA).
Bankes was world champion in 2021 and won silver in 2019, and she is conscious of the depth of the competition this year.
Other riders to watch out for include Casta’s compatriots Julia Pereira de Sousa, Manon Petit Lenoir, and Trespeuch, all of whom are capable of winning a medal.
Similarly Michela Moioli (ITA) is, alongside Jacobellis, one of the most consistent recent performers at the world championships with bronze medals in 2015, 2017 and 2019 and silver in 2021. Moioli missed the 2023 World Championships through injury.
One thing seems certain: the women’s racing will be fierce, and the riders are coming to enjoy themselves.
Dusek under pressure in title defence
In Bakuriani two years ago, Dusek snatched his first world title, beating Martin Noerl (GER) and Omar Visintin (ITA) in the final. The Austrian knows defending the world championship will be a tough ask – indeed no male rider has managed back-to-back titles since Alex Pullin (AUS) won in 2011 and 2013.
“It certainly won’t be easy to defend it,” Dusek acknowledges. “We’ve already seen throughout the entire World Cup season that there are many very good riders this year, and small details make the difference."
Dusek has won two out of the eight World Cup races this season, the same number as World Cup leader Eliot Grondin (CAN). Reigning junior world champion Leon Ulbricht (GER), and French riders Aidan Chollet, Julien Tomas and Loan Bozzolo have picked up the other four top podium finishes, with another seven riders also reaching the podium across the eight races, showing the depth of the field.
One of the riders who has taken a top-three finish this season is Cody Winters, who is set to become the first USA athlete to compete in both Snowboard Alpine and Snowboard Cross at a single World Championships. Winters was third in Cortina d’Ampezzo, having previously finished third at a Parallel Slalom World Cup in Bad Gastein.
He comes to the Snowboard Cross races in St. Moritz having just achieved fifth in Parallel Slalom, eighth in Parallel Giant Slalom, and fifth in the Parallel Team event at this year’s World Championships.
The chances of one of the young stars currently impressing in the men’s field reaching the podium in St. Moritz seems high. 2024 junior world champion Ulbricht, silver medalist Tomas and bronze medalist Chollet are all performing well this year.
Tomas says his silver medal from Gudauri helped him develop.
“It was so cool, it gave me a lot of confidence, and I’m hoping to be able to do the same again at a much higher level. We’ll see how it goes in these races,” he says.
Meanwhile there is good news for Switzerland, as Kalle Koblet, injured in the Mixed Team competition in Erzurum earlier in March, is in St. Moritz and hoping to start.
World Championship teaser
Team event gives more medal chances
In 2023, Bankes and Huw Nightingale (GBR) won the first Mixed Team world championship gold medal for Great Britain, beating Dusek and Pia Zerkhold (AUT) and Surget and Trespeuch (FRA) in the final.
There have only been a couple of chances for nations to test out their fastest combinations so far this season, with one win for Baff and Cameron Bolton (AUS) and one for Pereira de Sousa and Chollet (FRA). Bankes and Nightingale were second in Erzurum in early March, but missed the podium last week in Montafon.
“I think we’ve got a strong team, Huw is riding really well and shows his best when riding against the top guys so we will give our best for sure,” Bankes says.
Each nation is allowed to field a maximum of two teams, with 16 teams in total competing for the title. After a particularly strong showing in Montafon, where they took first and third, France are hot contenders, but so are Australia, alongside Great Britain, Italy and Austria.
Qualifying races take place on Thursday 27 March from 12:30 CET. The men’s and women’s individual finals are on Friday 28 March, beginning at 12:00 CET, and the Mixed Team event is at 11:00 CET on Saturday 29 March.
After both days of finals, there will be a champions' celebration at the medal plaza in St. Moritz at 19:00 CET.
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