We’re here at the finals of the FIS Snowboard Cross World Cup tour 2021/22 in Switzerland’s Veysonnaz. After a long and intense season, it will be time for one last SBX show, which for some of the athletes also means the fight for the overall crystal globe.
Big, fast, and technical all at once, Veysonnaz demands the best out of the riders in every run, from the first to the big final, therefore this season’s grand finale in Switzerland should be grand indeed.
Before we take a closer look into the crystal globe situation, let’s check out the highlights that we got to witness so far this season:
– The first-ever FIS Snowboard Cross World Cup was held in Zhangjiakou, China, as the Olympic test event as the season kick-off.
– Back-to-back races were held as a World Cup premiere in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk resort at the beginning of the New Year and the organizer’s showed indeed how and why they have already successfully held the Winter Universiade 2019 and the FIS Junior Freestyle, Freeski and Snowboard World Championships there. A great course and a great organizer really made the double races memorable.
– The first-ever SBX night race was held in Italy’s famous resort Cortina d’Ampezzo
– the 24. Olympic Winter Games were held in Beijing (CHN) from February 4-20. The new Olympic SBX champions are Lindsey Jacobellis (USA) and Alessandro Haemmerle (AUT), as well as Team USA consisting of Lindsey Jacobellis and Nick Baumgartner, who won the Olympic premiere of the SBX mixed-team event.
– With a total of 8 individual competitions and one mixed-team event, the World Cup calendar 2021/22 is considered to have been a quite successful one.
Charlotte Bankes will take home the SBX crystal globe
And now to the hottest topic at every World Cup finals: the crystal globes!
While on the women’s side, season dominator Charlotte Bankes (GB) has already finalized her first-ever crystal globe win with a total of 569 points, which is 113 points ahead of runner-up Michela Moioli (ITA), who holds 456 points in second rank, it is going to be a fight for rank two and three between the Italian and Olympic silver medallist Chloe Trespeuch (FRA), who has 435 points. Depending on their performances on Sunday, only those two athletes can make it to rank two or three respectively.
Charlotte Bankes did earn the crystal globe win in an incredible manner with four wins, and two more podium spots, one second and one third, this season. Bankes seems to be in a league of her own at the moment, so all we can say is “congratulations” on the overall World Cup win – it is truly deserved!
Crystal globe battle is on for the men
