Mia Brookes wasn’t even planning on winning, but the 17-year-old rider from Great Britain landed a cab 1440 stalefish at the FIS World Cup Big Air competition in China on Monday, December 2, 2024. And a backside 1260 weddle. Her final score for the event was a 94.
“I didn’t even plan on coming to win today,” Brookes said in a press release from Monster. “I just wanted to land my new tricks, and just being here is so sick, but to win is insane.” Check out her performance in the embedded video below.
The win is Brookes' second major accomplishment of the young season, as she won a silver medal at the freestyle slopestyle World Cup. She also took home a fifth-place finish in her first big air event in Switzerland. She became the first British slopestyle champion and the youngest winner of that event at the 2023 World Championships in Bakuriani, Georgia.
Brookes' path to snowboard stardom is a bit of an unconventional one. She grew up in Sandbach, Cheshire, about an hour’s drive outside of Liverpool. Her parents were ski and snowboard lovers, and had her on a board before the age of two. She famously told the Bomb Hole that her father insisted that she grabbed in between while poking out a method, just like legend Jamie Lynn.
Vicky and Nigel Brookes brought their daughter to the Chill Factore in Manchester, an indoor snow sports facility, to hone her craft. Then they would travel around Europe in the family motorhome. All of that led her to being named the BBC’s Young Sports Personality of the Year in 2023.
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But for those of us who weren’t completely paying attention just yet, it was Brookes X Games slopestyle gold medal that truly thrust her into the attention of the rest of the snowboard world.
Wearing a baggy all-black kit that flapped in the wind as she rode down the course, Brookes laid down her rail tricks with a style so smooth it almost seemed like she was bored doing so. She ended the run with a backside 900 and cab 1200 for a score of a 95, beating out Kokomo Murase and Reira Iwabuchi to win the gold.
Off of the snow, Brookes captured the attention of the world for her outspoken personality and her undying love of heavy metal music. She revealed that she was listening to Rage Against the Machine and Metallica during her gold medal-winning slopestyle run in Georgia, and even keeps one Airpod in during Monster Energy team dinners, according to Monster teammate Sage Kotsenburg.