Bankes wins first World Cup race since injury
Charlotte Bankes won the snowboard cross Crystal Globe in 2021–22 and 2022–23 and has three World Championship podium finishes
- Published
Great Britain's Charlotte Bankes won a Snowboard Cross World Cup race for the first time since breaking her collarbone in April with a dominant display in Dongbeiya.
The 30-year-old showed she is in fine form heading into the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, moving through qualification at the Chinese resort as the fastest athlete before winning both her quarter and semi-final.
Bankes then triumphed in the Big Final, finishing ahead of Australian Josie Baff and France's Chloe Trespeuch to seal victory at the second World Cup event of the season.
Saturday's win marked Bankes' first podium finish since she took bronze at the Montafon World Cup in March, and was her first victory since the Gudauri World Cup the same month.
Having fully recovered from the injury she sustained at the final World Cup event of last season, the two-time Crystal Globe winner now looks set to challenge for an Olympic medal in Italy.
The then reigning world champion, Bankes was knocked out in the quarter-finals at the 2022 Games in Beijing.
In Sunday's second race of the weekend, the last World Cup event before the 2026 Winter Olympics open on 6 February, Bankes finished third as France's Julia Nirani-Pereira took the win, while Trespeuch came in second.
Meanwhile, Britain's James Barnes-Miller secured his first Para-snowboard banked slalom World Cup podium since December 2022 at the Kuehtai World Cup on Saturday.
The 36-year-old's time of 56.44s saw him win silver by five hundredths of a second from France's Maxime Montaggioni, with Switzerland's Aron Fahrni taking victory in 54.62s.
Neil Simpson took his third World Cup podium of the week with silver in the Saalbach World Cup Super G races on Friday.
Racing alongside guide Rob Poth, Simpson secured his first ever Super G World Cup podium in the discipline in which he won gold at the 2022 Paralympic Winter Games and the 2023 World Championships.
The 23-year-old Scot had already won bronze medals in the back-to-back Downhill World Cup races earlier in the week.
