Snowboard Cross World Cup season preview 2024/25

The 2024/25 FIS Snowboard Cross World Cup season gets underway in less than a month, with the world’s best riders seeking to get the World Championships year off to a perfect start.

There are exciting new venues and plenty of racing for both individuals and teams on the cards this season, culminating in the 2025 World Championships in St. Moritz at the end of March. Riders are also looking to pick up FIS points on the road to the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games. Find out what’s in store in the coming months.

The venues

The first of eight World Cup stops this season is Cervinia in Italy on 13 and 14 December, a regular early-season host. Familiarity with the venue will surely be a benefit as the athletes get the season underway, and there is already plenty of snow in the resort.

Competition really gets going in the New Year. Between 23-25 January 2025, the Czech resort of Dolní Morava will host its first-ever SBX World Cup, with both individual and team (BXT) events on the schedule.

The SBX World Cup then returns to Asia for the first time since the 2021/22 season, with a weekend of individual events from 31 January until 2 February in the resort of Beidahu. Like Dolní Morava, Beidahu has never hosted an SBX World Cup.

After that, it’s back to Italy and Cortina d’Ampezzo. That World Cup, with individual events only, takes place between 14-15 February at night. That makes for an unmissable spectacle for fans, whether watching in Italy or on TV at home.

From 28 February to 2 March attention turns to Türkiye. After previously hosting an SBX World Cup in 2018 and the Winter Universiade in 2011, the ski resort of Erzerum in the east of the country will welcome BXT and individual competition.

Last season, Gudauri in Georgia hosted a successful double-header weekend, and that will repeat this year from 7-9 March. Montafon, Austria, from 20-22 March, is the penultimate World Cup this season, and the last for BXT, just a week before the World Championships.

Between 27-29 March the 2025 world champions will be crowned in St. Moritz, but that is not the last stop of the season. That honor goes to Mont-Sainte-Anne in Canada for a last double-header World Cup weekend between 4-6 April.

Ones to watch – women

There will be a new women’s Crystal Globe winner this season, with Chloe Trespeuch (FRA) taking time out as she is expecting a baby in January. That could pave the way for Charlotte Bankes (GBR) to regain the trophy, after Trespeuch stopped her from becoming the three-time back-to-back Globe winner in 2024.

Reigning world champion Eva Adamczykova (CZE), who beat Josie Baff (AUS) and Lindsay Jacobellis (USA) to the title in Bakuriani in 2023, will also miss this season after announcing she is pregnant.

But there are plenty of other contenders snapping at Bankes’ heels. Michela Moioli (ITA) was third behind Trespeuch and Bankes last year in a solid comeback from injury. Baff enters her third season after consolidating her position as one of the best young riders out there, while fellow Australian Belle Brockhoff is coming back from an early-season injury, but cannot be counted out.

Three-time Olympic medalist Jacobellis is also back; Jacobellis will turn 40 next August, but is set to start her 20th year on the USA snowboard team.

Ones to watch – men

On the men’s side, Eliot Grondin (CAN) took his first Crystal Globe in 2024 after a dominant season in which he won seven World Cup races. His competition will be trying to close the huge gap he put on the field in 2023/24.

2022 and 2023 Crystal Globe winner Martin Noerl (GER) is back on his board after missing much of last season through injury. Noerl was second to Jakob Dusek (CZE) at the 2023 World Championships, and the early events of the season will show whether he has been able to regain the sort of form which could see him challenge for gold in St. Moritz. Dusek was sixth in last year’s overall standings, recording three podiums in a slightly mixed set of results.

Beijing 2022 champion Alexander Haemmerle (AUT) had a good year in 2023/24, finishing second in the Crystal Globe standings behind Grondin, after being forced to sit out much of the previous season. There were also solid showings from the likes of Merlin Surget (FRA) and world and Olympic bronze medalist Omar Visintin (ITA).

And keep an eye on Cameron Bolton (AUS). The 33-year-old was third in the overall Crystal Globe standings last season, finishing on the World Cup podium four times in the best showing of his career – can he follow up in 2024/25?

Rule change

For the 2024/25 season, FIS has introduced an adjustment to the yellow card rule. Beier says it has become apparent having only yellow and red cards is insufficient.

A new "soft sanction", ranked below yellow cards, has accordingly been introduced. This will rank the offending athlete last in the heat without immediately issuing a yellow card.

"It ensures a fairer and more precise system for handling incidents, without automatically impacting the athlete’s participation in the next race," explains Beier.