Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale roared to Great Britain’s best ever result on snow at the Winter Olympics as they claimed a thrilling gold medal in mixed team snowboard cross.
The duo stormed through the heats before Bankes stormed past her French opponent Lea Casta in the four strong final to cross the line first at the Milan and Cortina Games.
It marked a remarkable revival from the duo who had both exited the heats in disappointing fashion in their respective individual events earlier in the games.
But they went into the team event – in which the women start at intervals determined by the result of the preceding men’s race – not without hope.
Bankes and Nightingale were crowned world champions in Georgia in 2023, and also made a World Cup podium as recently as December.
Their medal is Britain’s best ever on snow, building on the bronzes previously won by Jenny Jones, Billy Morgan and Izzy Atkin.
Team GB’s Winter Olympics gold medal winners
1924: Men’s curling
1936: Men’s ice hockey
1952: Jeannette Altwegg – figure skating
1964: Tony Nash and Robin Dixon – men’s bobsleigh
1976: John Curry – figure skating
1980: Robin Cousins – figure skating
1984: Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean – figure skating
2002: Women’s curling
2010: Amy Williams – skeleton
2014: Lizzy Yarnold – skeleton
2018: Lizzy Yarnold – skeleton
2022: Women’s curling
2026: Matt Weston – skeleton
2026: Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale – snowboard cross
‘They have jumped every single hurdle just to be here,’ said former winter Olympian and TNT pundit, Aimee Fuller.
‘The sport can go wrong at any moment but everything went right today. This moment will go down in the history books for Team GB as one of the most iconic, it is so special.
‘It shows who we are as a team, one Team GB. It makes me so proud to be British.
‘We saw Charlotte Bankes’ binding on her board quite literally break and she stayed so calm, so smooth and so collected.
‘Her mental agility to turn that around and rewrite history today is something else.
‘Most people would totally flap and crumble under pressure and she just didn’t.’
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