FIS Snowboard Cross World Cup season preview 2025/26
Dec 03, 2025·Snowboard Cross)
The 2025/26 Snowboard Cross season is about to begin, with exciting FIS World Cup races and of course the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games on the program.
The World Cup tour kicks off with the traditional season-opener in Cervinia, Italy, on 13 and 14 December, and currently features five stops in total. The Olympics break up the World Cup season before the Crystal Globes are handed out in March.
Ones to watch: women
The 2024/25 season was a breakout year for France’s Lea Casta. She won her first-ever World Cup race in Cervinia in December last year, and added another three victories and five more podium finishes during the tour. Casta was also crowned junior world champion for a second time in March.
At still only 19 years old, Casta leads a formidable French team coming into the 2025/26 season. Julia Pereira de Sousa was third overall in the Crystal Globe standings last year, and Manon Petit Lenoir ninth. Two-time Olympic medalist Chloe Trespeuch is also on this year’s squad, continuing her comeback after becoming a mother last year.
Czechia’s Eva Adamczyková, the 2014 Olympic champion, three-time Crystal Globe winner and two-time world champion, is also returning to the tour this season after becoming a mother.
Casta is not the only youngster hoping to impress in the new season. Australian Josie Baff, who will turn 23 years old just before the Olympic Games, had a solid 2024-25, ending up fourth overall after three podium finishes and victory in the team event in Erzurum. Baff recently won the European Cup in Pitzal, with Casta fourth in the big final.
There will be big hopes for Italy at their home Olympic Games when reigning world champion Michela Moioli takes to the start. Moioli shone at the World Championships in Engadin, and was seventh in the World Cup tour – a position she will certainly be hoping to improve upon this season, in addition to targeting her second Olympic gold medal after Pyeongchang 2018.
Another veteran wanting success this season is Great Britain’s Charlotte Bankes. Bankes was leading Casta in the Crystal Globe race until breaking her collarbone in a training crash ahead of the season finale in Mont-Sainte-Anne in March. Since then, the 2021 world champion has been working hard to get herself fit again for the Olympic season. If she has done enough, she will as ever be among the hot favorites to challenge for the Crystal Globe and Olympic medals.
Ones to watch: men
Eliot Grondin had a perfect 2024/25, taking the Crystal Globe and the world championships title by a huge margin. Grondin picked up two wins and three more podium finishes in the World Cup tour last year to push Bozzolo into second. It was Grondin’s second Crystal Globe in a row; the Canadian has not finished outside the top four riders in the past five seasons.
But for Bozzolo, it was by far his best result on the tour. Like Casta, Bozzolo is pushed along by a strong French team: Aidan Chollet and Julien Tomas finished fourth and fifth overall in the standings last season, and Merlin Surget was 10th. Bozzolo is targeting consistency in the new season in a bid to replicate his results.
“Finishing second in the overall ranking is a good thing, but nothing is guaranteed. I know that everyone is very strong and that everyone works hard. The only thing I take away from this is that I’m capable of staying at a high level throughout an entire season. Now I just need to figure out how to do it again," said Bozzolo.
Chasing Grondin and Bozzolo are a formidable line-up of riders. 2023 world champion Jakob Dusek was third last year and fellow Austrian Alessandro Haemmerle, the reigning Olympic champion, 11th; Austria’s Lukas Pachner was also consistent with a seventh-place finish overall.
Australia also had a successful World Cup tour in 2024-25, with Adam Lambert finishing sixth and Cameron Bolton ninth. Germany’s Leon Ulbricht was eighth, the best result for the 21-year-old in three World Cup seasons.
The venues
The World Cup tour, which this year has Azerbaijan as its title partner, kicks off in Cervinia on 13 and 14 December. Individual races for men and women take place on Saturday 13, followed by a mixed team event on 14 December.
In January, the tour returns to China. After last year’s successful competition in Beidahu, this year attention turns to Dongbeiya in the north-east of the country, for two individual races for both men and women on 17 and 18 January.
After the Olympic Winter Games, there are then three more stops on the World Cup tour currently scheduled. Following the success of the Erzurum World Cup in 2025, Türkiye will welcome riders back there on 7 and 8 March for two individual races.
The following week, the riders travel to Montafon in Austria for one race on 15 March. Montafon will also be the venue for the FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships 2027.
The season concludes once again in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada, where the Crystal Globe winners will be crowned in the Bataille Royale after two races on 28 and 29 March.
Milano Cortina 2026
The Olympic Winter Games take place at the Livigno Snow Park between 12 and 15 February, with the men’s event on 12 February, the women’s on 13 February and the mixed team event on 15 February.
Qualification for the Olympic Games concludes on 18 January, with the top 32 men and top 32 women qualifying. Each nation is restricted to four athletes of each gender. Qualifying athletes must have at least 100 FIS points in Snowboard Cross accumulated between 1 July 2024 and 18 January 2026, and have placed in the top 30 of at least one World Cup event or the FIS Snowboard World Championships 2025.
The top 16 teams will qualify for the mixed team event, with a maximum of three teams qualifying per nation.
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