For the second time in as many months, Mia Brooks found herself atop the podium at another FIS World Cup Big Air contest.
The 17-year-old from England held off Japanese riders Mari Fukada and Mom Suzuki to win gold in Klagenfurt, Austria. She finished with a total score of 184.25.
"It feels kind of unreal. I think it needs to sink in,” Brooks told the BBC. “It's insane to say I've won two back-to-back competitions."
Brooks took home the top spot in for big air in Beijing on December 2, 2024. She also won a silver medal at the freestyle slopestyle World Cup earlier this season.
Brooks sat in third place after her first jump. Then she sat in second place going into her third and final run. Brooks, donning an all black kit, white Oakley goggles, and a Monster Energy sticker on her helmet, dropped into the jump riding switch, worked her way from the left side of the runway to the right, and launched herself into a cab 1440 while grabbing melon.
It was the first 1440 of the competition, and though she had a little bit of a handdrag on the landing, it didn’t matter. She catapoulted herself into first place, and stayed there for the remaineder of the competition.
“She put the 14 down and it was cleaner than anything ese she’s ever done. Hands on her head, she knows how big it was,” the announcer exclaimed on NBC Sports.
"It was insane, I surprised myself," Brookes told the BBC.
"I didn't even plan to do a 14 (cab 1440 melon trick). I knew I could do the trick, it was just whether I could get it round on the jump.
Austrian Anna Gasser finished in fifth place, with a score of 163.75. Meanwhile, American Lily Dhawornvej continued her hot streak by making the finals. Just before Christmas, Dhawornvej clinched a spot at X Games Aspen when her 50-50 to tame dog to rail transfer sequence helped her land in third place at the street style contest at Copper Mountain. On Saturday night in Austria, she stomped her third and final run, landing a backside 720 stalefish.
On the men’s side of things, Taiga Hasegawa took the top spot with a combined score of 179.75. It is the 19-year-old’s fourth big air World Cup victory of his career.
Italian Ian Matteoli came in second place. He currently ranks sixth on the FIS World Snowboard points list in big air, and 11th in slopestyle.
Next up on the World Cup schedule is the Laax Open. Both the slopestyle and halfpipe contests will go off starting on January 15, 2025.