Mia Brookes: British 16-year-old snowboarder makes history at World Championships
Teenage snowboarding sensation Mia Brookes pulled off one of the sport’s toughest moves on her way to becoming Britain’s first ever slopestyle world champion today.
The 16-year-old from Cheshire recorded the first ever 1440 double grab – in which a snowboarder takes off backwards and rotates four times – in a women’s competition to beat Olympic champion Zoi Sadowski-Synnott at the championships in Bakuriani, Georgia.
Brookes was too young to compete at last year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing and is in her first season on the World Cup circuit but is already living up to expectations set as a child prodigy.
“I honestly feel like I’m going to cry. I’ve never been so happy in my life,” she said.
“My coach was like, ‘you know what, if you want to win this, just try the 14’. I’d tried 1260 in practice and I came round and almost went 14, so I knew it was possible on this jump.
“I’d tried it once before and this is the first time I’ve stomped it. I actually can’t believe it.”
New Zealand’s Sadowski-Synnott pipped Brookes to gold at the World Cup in Austria last month but the young Briton got her own back at the Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships.
“What Mia’s done out here is just next level,” said GB Snowsport head coach Pat Sharples.
“We all know Mia’s got the talent but this is her first season on the World Cup circuit and her first World Championships, so to land a run like that with all the pressure of a World Championships tells you everything you need to know about her.”
Brookes began snowboarding at 18 months and honed her skills on the slopes of Chamonix, where her parents Vicky and Nigel worked five ski seasons.
She started competing aged six and by 11 had joined the World Rookie Tour for the best under-15 talent and was being called “one of the most exciting young talents not just in the UK, but in snowboarding globally”.
Her success comes two weeks after 14-year-old Briton Sky Brown became a skateboarding world champion.