Why first gold on snow has been just a matter of time

An Olympic gold medal on snow has long seemed like the impossible for Team GB's winter athletes. One hundred and two years, to be exact.

But for those in the know, it has been just a matter of time.

In winning the mixed team snowboard cross title in Livigno on Sunday, Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale have written themselves into the history books, forever to be known as the first - yet it has been a very real prospect for a while.

In 2018, GB Snowsport set the lofty ambition of Great Britain becoming a top five snow sport nation by 2030.

It was a target set to build on the success of snowboarder Jenny Jones, Team GB's first medallist on snow with her 2014 bronze, and the same colour won by freestyle skier Izzy Atkin and snowboarder Billy Morgan four years later.

But it was also a target that raised eyebrows and smirks, and perhaps with four years to go, may still be a touch too ambitious - but the trajectory of progression is undeniable.

In Bankes - both individually and with Nightingale - Mia Brookes and Zoe Atkin, GB has world champions on snow. It has overall multiple Crystal Globe winners, X Games and World Cup gold medallists too.

"We've been saying we've got the talent, we've been showing the talent in World Championships and World Cups, but everybody looks to the Olympics because everything is amplified," GB Snowsport chief executive Vicky Gosling told BBC Sport.

"Here we are, actually producing that gold. For us, that is massive.

"We've said that anything is possible. We have amazing Brits with grit and amazing talent, it's all about unlocking that.

"People can truly see it's possible and we can deliver Olympic medals.

"Hopefully we are inspiring the next generation to get themselves to snow domes and get themselves prepared because the future is looking rosy."

Speaking after Sunday's gold, Nightingale said: "What we've shown today, we are becoming a top snow sports nation and that's great for kids to see.

"We inspire kids to go on the slopes and go snowboarding or skiing or whatever it is, just try out winter sports.

"As a nation, if we get young kids into it, we can do very well."

Yes, it's right to say that the Milan-Cortina Games has not gone to plan for some British snow athletes so far.

But Olympic medal tables do not tell the full story, and are not the be-all and end-all.

Snowboarder Brookes finished an agonising fourth in the big air - despite almost landing a never-before-seen trick in competition - and failed to qualify for the slopestyle final.

Yet despite not winning Olympic gold, silver or bronze as anticipated after her previous World Championship title and double X Games gold, she is a diamond on the British books and one of the biggest names in her sport.

She is just 19 and could well lead the British challenge at multiple Winter Olympics in the future - if she decides to continue down that avenue.

That's because Brookes is a snowboarder's snowboarder, a "purist's dream", who takes far more joy in shredding on a powder day than competing on the world stage.

So highly respected is she in her sport that every brand wants to work with her - BBC Sport understands it is just a case of name your price.

Next year, her own line of Oakley goggles will hit the market. She already has her own Mia Brookes CAPiTA snowboard, and a boots line with Vans.

In Muir and Atkin, Great Britain also has two of the world's best freestyle skiers.

Like Brookes, Muir missed out on an Olympic medal by the narrowest of margins, just 0.41 points separating her from bronze in the slopestyle, but she has another chance in the big air on Monday after qualifying fourth - with plenty still in her locker.

Atkin, meanwhile, is the current halfpipe world champion and X Games gold medallist, and will get her campaign under way on 21 February.

Away from the flagship park and pipe squad, Andrew Musgrave - competing at his fifth Olympics - finished sixth in the 10km interval start freestyle to post Britain's best finish in a Winter Olympic cross-country skiing event.

The Alpine skiing squad - Dave Ryding, Laurie Taylor and Billy Major - compete on Monday in the slalom.

In 2022, Ryding won Britain's first World Cup gold in the sport and will retire at the end of the season with seven podiums under his belt, while Taylor achieved a career-best fourth earlier in the season.

What makes GB's snow athletes' achievements all the more remarkable is the limited budget on which the team operates.

As Gosling told BBC Sport before the Games got under way, "we've punched way above our weight in terms of the deliverables".

UK Sport ploughed £7.2m into the ski and snowboard Olympic programme over the Milan-Cortina four-year cycle, more than any other winter sport but a mere fraction of the budget on what other nations are running.

It equates to £1.8m per year, a limited amount given the amount of global travel required for not just the athletes, but their coaches and support staff too, and so the governing body - which has just seven full-time members of staff at its London headquarters - has had to turn its hand to sourcing alternative funding through commercial revenue and sponsorship deals.

The sticking point for any GB success on snow has always been the lack of snowy mountains and freestyle courses, but that is not as convincing an argument as it once was.

Yes, many of Team GB's athletes have honed their crafts overseas - Bankes is Hemel Hempstead-born but grew up in the French Alps, while Nightingale hails from Bolton but moved to Austria with his parents.

But Jones and Morgan both learned on dry slopes in the UK. Looking at the current crop, Brookes grew up riding the rails at the indoor ski centre in Manchester, while Muir learned her craft in Aberdeen. Ryding raced on plastic in Lancashire until he was 21.

"We have over 60 facilities in the UK," said Gosling. "We produce amazing talent and we have showed it time and time again over the past few years.

"Now it's about nurturing the talent and building the pathways needed and [putting] more emphasis and funding into it."