Montafon set for Snowboard Cross show in last pre-World Championship test

Just a week before the Engadin 2025 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships, the FIS Snowboard Cross World Cup tour stops in Montafon, Austria this weekend for both individual and Mixed Team competition.

With the bulk of the season complete, the weekend will be a chance for riders to not only bank important World Cup points, but also warm up for the competition in Engadin between 27 and 29 March.

Home favourites Alessandro Haemmerle, Jakob Dusek and Pia Zerkhold will all be wanting to challenge overall leaders Eliot Grondin (CAN) and Charlotte Bankes (GBR) in front of the Austrian crowds.

Zerkhold and Lukas Pachner (AUT) also reached the podium in the Mixed Team event in Erzurum, Türkiye, earlier in March, and Montafon is another chance for a top-three finish – but Australia, Great Britain, the USA and France are all serious contenders too.

Racing begins in Montafon on Thursday 20 March at 11:00 CET with qualification. Individual finals begin at 11:00 CET on Friday 21 March, while the Mixed Team finals are from 14:45 CET on Saturday 22 March.

Haemmerle relishing home challenge

When the World Cup tour stopped in Montafon in the 2023/24 season, reigning Olympic champion Haemmerle won on both days – with his teammate Dusek second on day 2 and Julian Lueftner (AUT) third on day 1.

Haemmerle’s 2024/25 season has been a little disrupted, with an injury keeping him away from the first stop in Cervinia and illness keeping him away from the last three races. In between, he was second and fifth in Beidahu in February, and 11th in Cortina d’Ampezzo a fortnight later.

“My season so far wasn’t the easiest: missing the first race because of back pain. Coming back straight on the podium was awesome. Then the illness and missing three races just because of that was really annoying,” Haemmerle says.

“But overall I am happy with my riding, I just haven’t had a lot of opportunities to show it so far.”

Haemmerle is happy to be ready for Montafon and thinks it will be a highlight of the season.

“It’s going to be a great show,” he says.

"Tension is still building up to that moment, fans can be excited to see some action-packed racing," Haemmerle adds.

He says Montafon is a special place to race.

“It‘s my home, it‘s the crowd – many of my friends and family can come watch and the track is usually just awesome fun to ride,” Haemmerle says.

Last season in Montafon French riders also shone, with four different male riders reaching the two big finals and Merlin Surget and Leo le Ble Jacques picking up podium finishes. Julien Tomas (FRA) and Loan Bozzolo (FRA) were both fourth last year, and currently sit fourth and fifth in the overall Cup standings.

They are chasing Grondin, who brings a healthy 145-point lead over Dusek to Montafon, and Leon Ulbricht, who trails Dusek by 48 points. The rest of the men’s top 10 includes Cameron Bolton (AUS), Pachner, Aidan Chollet (FRA), Adam Lambert (AUS) and Surget.

Teenagers impressing in women’s competition

While overall women’s leader Bankes and fifth-placed Michela Moioli (ITA) are relative veterans of Snowboard Cross at the age of 29, the women’s tour this year has been characterized by outstanding performances by younger riders. Those include 17-year-olds Noemie Wiedmer (SUI) and Karolina Hrusova (CZE), who are currently sitting sixth and 11th respectively in the standings.

Wiedmer made her World Cup debut in Cervinia and instantly had an impact, reaching the semifinals and then winning the small final. In Gudauri, Georgia, two weeks ago, the Swiss rider got to her first big final where she was very much in contention before crashing – as she notes, her best result so far. Last year, also in Gudauri, Wiedmer was the FIS Junior World Championship silver medallist behind Lea Casta (FRA).

Wiedmer says this season has been a learning curve for her.

She is hoping for another set of strong results in Montafon in the coming days.

“I know that it could be enough for a big final but I'm also happy with a top-eight result and I hope that I can ride the team event because it's a lot of fun,” Wiedmer says.

Wiedmer’s junior rival Casta, still only 19 years old, will come to Montafon hoping for another chance at closing the gap between herself and Bankes at the top of the standings – currently 57 points, after Bankes missed the knockout racing on the first day in Gudauri before bouncing back for victory on day 2.

Josie Baff (AUS) is third, narrowly ahead of Julia Pereira de Sousa (FRA) and Moioli. Bankes, Baff and Moioli all reached the podium in Montafon last season.

After Wiedmer, Manon Petit Lenoir (FRA), Sina Siegenthaler (SUI), Pia Zerkhold and Mia Clift (AUS) round out the top 10.

For the first time this season last year's Crystal Globe winner Chloe Trespeuch (FRA) will start, less than three months after giving birth.

Mixed Team event back on the menu

Montafon will host the second Mixed Team event of the season, ahead of the World Championships. In the first race in Erzurum, it was the Australian combination of Cameron Bolton and Josie Baff who triumphed after edging out the reigning world champions, Huw Nightingale and Charlotte Bankes (GBR) in the big final.

The British are out to improve on that second place in Montafon.

“Me and Charlotte work very well together,” says Nightingale. “We have been teammates for some time now and we just click when it comes to the team event.”

He notes that Montafon has not hosted the team races since 2022, when Lorenzo Sommariva and Moioli won for Italy, ahead of Czechia and France.

“⁠We haven’t had a team event in Montafon for some time now and I can’t wait to race some heats with Charlotte again,” Nightingale adds.

He says Mixed Team stands out from the individual competition.

Facts & Figures

0.04 seconds: The time difference between first and second in the Mixed Team final in Erzurum
4: Number of nationalities represented in men’s top 10 standings
23.5: The average age of the current women’s top 10

QUICK LINKS

Race Calendar
2024-25 Men's Cup Standings
2024-25 Women's Cup Standings
Start lists - Montafon (AUT)
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