In a moment 102 years in the making, Great Britain finally has its first gold medal on snow.
Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale delivered a historic victory in the mixed team snowboard cross at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Sunday, overtaking France on the final turn to secure the nation’s maiden title on a frozen surface and adding to Team GB’s most successful Winter Games in history.
On a glorious sunny day at the Livigno Snow Park, the British duo produced a masterclass in timing and nerve. The victory was particularly sweet given the disappointment of the individual events earlier in the week, where Bankes finished 13th and Nightingale 26th, results so discouraging that the pair had drowned their sorrows in a pub.
Yet under the clear blue Italian sky, everything clicked.
The mixed team format is one of the most chaotic disciplines in the Winter Games. The male snowboarder goes first, with the time gap at the finish carried over to the women’s leg, which starts in a staggered format based on those differences.
In the big final, Nightingale played a blinder, finishing his run just 0.14 seconds behind France’s Loan Bozzolo, with Italy close behind and Australia having crashed out.
That set the stage for Bankes. The 30-year-old four-time Olympian and 2021 world champion lurked behind France’s Léa Casta for much of the steep, treacherous course before making her move.
Timing her overtake perfectly on the inside of the final turn, Bankes seized a lead she would never relinquish, crossing the line 0.43 seconds ahead of the charging Italian team.
“It’s fine margins,” Bankes reflected after the race. “Even for us individuals, it’s really fine margins. To actually pull it off, that’s what I’m proud of, to be able to do it in a team event”. She added, “It’s Team GB that’s Olympic champion, and that’s for all the support we get”.
The victory was a testament to her resilience after the anguish of going out in the quarterfinals. “I’m happy with my riding all day,” Bankes said. “I found it again, which I’ve been struggling with for the last week here. At last, I found some speed and made it count”.
For the 24-year-old Nightingale, born in Bolton but raised in Austria where his family runs a B&B, the gold medal represents an “unbelievable” pinnacle of a career often viewed as that of a journeyman. “It’s hard to describe in words,” he said. “We both put in so much hard work. It just feels amazing”.
Reflecting on the journey from disappointment to glory, he noted, “The singles were tough but now there are tears of joy”.
The victory adds to the skeleton title won by Matt Weston two days earlier, marking the first time Great Britain has ever won two gold medals at a single Winter Olympics. It is only the nation’s 15th overall gold medal at the Winter Games since its debut in 1924, with five of those coming in figure skating, most famously from ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean in 1984.
“It’s unbelievable,” Nightingale said of the team’s growing success. “GB on a whole is doing great on the snowboard side…. We want to keep it going and inspire little kids to do it as well, and maybe one day they can get a gold medal”.
The home favorites, Italy’s Michela Moioli and Lorenzo Sommariva, claimed silver, adding to Moioli’s individual bronze earlier in the Games. France’s Lea Casta and Loan Bozzolo took bronze.
There was heartbreak for the defending champions from the United States, as 2022 gold medalists Nick Baumgartner and Faye Thelen were eliminated in the quarterfinals, while Australia’s individual women’s champion Josie Baff finished fourth after her partner Adam Lambert crashed in the final.
For Bankes, the victory is redemption after a crash at the Beijing Games and a broken collarbone in 2025 that required two surgeries. “Hopefully it means everybody can go out and enjoy themselves and take that little bit of pressure off them and go give their best,” she said. “I don’t doubt that there will be more medals coming”.