Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale won Great Britain’s first ever Olympic gold medal on snow after roaring to victory in the mixed team snowboard cross event in Livigno.
The duo shrugged off disappointing displays in their respective individual events to muscle their way through two heats of the high-octane relay before Bankes crossed first in the final to make history.
It marked an extraordinary reversal of fortunes for Bankes, a multiple World Cup race winner who partnered Nightingale to the world title in Georgia in 2023, and also led them to a World Cup podium as recently as December.
But hopes were not high after a difficult first week for the British ski and snowboard team, with Bankes issuing a tearful apology only two days ago after a frustrating ninth place finish on the same course.
On Sunday, high in the Italian Alps, she proved unstoppable. In an event in which the women start the second leg at intervals determined by the result of the preceding men’s race, she made up a deficit of over a second on leaders Canada to qualify for the semi-finals in first place.
Then it was time for 24-year-old Nightingale, who has often candidly admitted his relay role is simply to leave Bankes in with a fighting chance, to dramatically transform into a world-beater.
He blazed to second place in the next heat, pipped only by Frenchman Loan Bozzolo, and gifting Bankes the chance to surge home from the front and seal Britain’s place in the four-team final in first place.
Once again, Nightingale rose to the challenge, delivering a superb run to leave Bankes with an almost inconsequential deficit behind leaders France.
A fall by Adam Lambert left the much-fancied Australians almost out of the running, and effectively guaranteed the British pair a medal provided Bankes kept on her feet.
But the 30-year-old had other ideas, surging past leader Lea Casta midway down the winding course and holding off a determined push by Italy’s Michaela Moioli to seal a brilliant, historic and thoroughly redemptive gold.
Bankes and Nightingale are the fourth British athletes to win Olympic medals on snow, building on the bronze medals previously won by Jenny Jones in 2014, and both Billy Morgan and Izzy Atkin in 2018.
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