‘When I stood at the top of the run, I felt something in the air,” says 16-year-old Mia Brookes, her face etched with joy and awe as she relieves the dizzying trick that made her the youngest world champion in snowboarding history this year. “I knew it was going to happen. It was really weird.”
Until last month no female snowboarder had ever attempted a Cab 1440 double grab in competition. Little wonder. The trick is so risky it should carry an X-certificate. But on a witchy day in Bakuriani, Georgia, something magical was brewing. On her second run, with the slopestyle world championship on the line, the schoolgirl from Sandbach in Cheshire flew backwards off a ramp, twisted her body through four rotations while also grabbing her board twice, and landed smoothly and serenely.
“It was only the second time I had tried it,” she says. “But I knew if I landed, it would be an automatic win. Going down the course I was like: ‘Right, this is one step closer to doing the 14’. As I got to the jump, I thought to myself: ‘I’ve landed everything up to this point’, so I was confident.
“Afterwards, it was pretty intense. I didn’t really know if I should be excited or cry because I was so happy.”
The trick was the culmination of a near-perfect run that earned her gold ahead of the reigning Olympic champion, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott. It was also some rise to prominence given that Brookes was too young to compete in last year’s Beijing Games. But this was a success story 14 years in the making, from the moment her parents, Nigel and Vicky, first took Brookes on to the slopes at 18 months old.
Nigel’s job as a mechanic and Vicky’s as a hairdresser meant they were able to work while snowboarding around Europe in their family motorhome and it soon became apparent Brookes was a natural.
“At the start it was mainly me on a leash, strapped on my dad’s back just riding around,” she says, laughing. “Then as I got older I just learned how to snowboard. I can’t remember much of how I started, but I’m super happy that this is what my life is.”
At 10, she was selected for Team GB’s development squad and by 13 she had made her senior debut when she was second at the Europa Cup slopestyle in Corvatsch, Switzerland.
The sport’s world governing body, the International Ski Federation, called the performance an “incredible debut on the international competition scene”. However, some at her school in Sandbach were less impressed.
“Some teachers were like: ‘Why are you even thinking about being a pro snowboarder?’” she says. “You don’t come from a country with mountains. You’re mad. They were basically: ‘We thought you would have given up on it by now’. And we were: ‘No, actually we haven’t.’ And we’re still going to this day.”
The BBC Ski Sunday commentator Ed Leigh, a friend of the family, says one teacher even uttered the words: “Well, it’s not like she’s going to be world champion is it?” but adds it was always clear Brookes had the talent, temperament and the parental support to succeed.
“Her unorthodox lifestyle singles her out when she was young and life wasn’t easy in that respect,” Leigh says. “But she has always had such a clear idea of what she wants to do and the steel to get there.”
Thankfully, relations with her school have improved since the teacher departed and when she returned after her world title win, Brookes says everyone was “super happy”.
When her season ends on Sunday she will concentrate on her GCSEs in May and until recently she had intended to take A-levels. However, the prospect of being a full-time professional is increasingly alluring.
Whatever Brookes does next, she understands that while snowboarding can be supremely exciting and exhilarating it also carries risks. In 2021, she suffered a bad concussion and was unconscious for 40 minutes after a training accident and was airlifted off the snow.
“When I first started to ride the big jumps and get into bigger competitions, I would be so scared to try new tricks and step up a bit more,” she says. “But now I’ve just accepted it.
“This is a dangerous sport. Things are going to happen to you. You can’t guarantee anything. One run you could be on top of the moon and then the next you could be in hospital. You never know what’s going to happen. But that’s what makes it so exciting. Everything’s different. Nothing is the same.”
What has certainly changed in the past month is that the Brookes family have been flooded with offers from potential sponsors. “Overnight, it just exploded,” says Mia. “It was pretty mad. We’re currently just in that stage of deciding between different people, but it was pretty cool.”
It will, Vicky says, be life-changing for all of them. “We’re not from a wealthy background,” she says. “When we were travelling in our early 20s, we always knew that once that finished, I’d go back into hairdressing and Nigel would go back into doing car repairs. So we have had to cut our cloth accordingly.”
At one point, Vicky says, they needed a new garage roof, but instead the money went on helping Mia. It’s not just cash, but time.
“Last year Nigel and I worked out that we spent six weeks together at home,” she says. “We have an old car that we leave in the airport in Switzerland and as I fly home after looking after Mia over there, he comes out from Manchester. We pass the glass and it’s ‘see you next week’.”
For now, Brookes’s GCSEs are the next big test on her horizon. But now and again she allows her mind to tumble towards the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. “I would like to stay on in school and study A-level psychology, but snowboarding is at the top of my list now and I’ve got to focus on that until the Games,” she says.
“Since winning the world championships my head has gone to a different level. Before I just wanted to reach the Olympics and try for the podium. Now my mindset has flipped. I want to go to Milan-Cortina and win gold.”
