Ryding & Brookes in 20-strong GB snow squad for Winter Olympics

British skiing great Dave Ryding and World Championship gold medallists Zoe Atkin, Mia Brookes and Charlotte Bankes have been named in a 20-strong Team GB snowsport squad for the upcoming Winter Olympics.

Alpine star Ryding will compete at his fifth and final Olympics at Milan-Cortina, having already announced he will retire at the end of the season.

Atkin is the current freestyle skiing halfpipe world champion, while Brookes – who will make her long-awaited Olympic debut – became snowboarding’s youngest world champion as a 16-year-old with her slopestyle gold in 2023.

Bankes, the 2021 snowboard cross world champion, will race at her fourth Olympics in both the individual and team events, the latter alongside Huw Nightingale, with whom she also won the mixed team world title in 2023.

“I am looking forward to performing on the biggest stage in front of a central European crowd for the first time in my Olympic career and I can’t wait to get out there and into the action,” said 39-year-old Ryding, who will be joined in the slalom competition by Billy Major and Laurie Taylor.

“I’ve never taken for granted what it means to represent my country and to have the chance to compete for Great Britain at an Olympic Games for the fifth time is something I could only have dreamed of when I went to my first Games back in 2010.”

Multiple World Cup gold medallist Kirsty Muir was Team GB’s youngest athlete four years ago in Beijing, and at the age of 21 she returns for her second Olympics to compete in the freestyle skiing slopestyle and big air alongside Chris McCormick.

Freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, who retired after the 2022 Games but returned to training last year, returns to the Olympic stage in the halfpipe alongside Liam Richards, while Maisie Hill and Txema Mazet-Brown join Brookes in competing in snowboard slopestyle and big air.

Like Ryding, Andrew Musgrave will compete at his fifth Olympics as he participates in the cross-country. He is selected alongside Beijing 2022 veteran James Clugnet and debutants Joe Davies and Anna Pryce.

Ollie Davies is Team GB’s sole representative in the ski cross, while Makayla Gerken Schofield and Mateo Jeannesson will compete in the moguls.

“Over the past four years, our skiers and snowboarders have shown they’re capable of mixing it with the very best in the world, and the squad that’s heading out for these Games is a real reflection of the talent, grit, and will to win that makes British sport so special,” said Vicky Gosling, GB Snowsport chief executive.

UK Sport believes Team GB could win between four and eight medals at next month’s Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.

The nation’s best medal haul at a Winter Games is five, achieved at Sochi 2014 and matched in Pyeongchang four years later, but Team GB came home from Beijing in 2022 with just two medals.

The BBC will broadcast more than 450 hours of live action from the Games, which run from Friday 6 to Sunday 22 February.

Park & Pipe

Zoe Atkin (freeski halfpipe)

Gus Kenworthy (freeski halfpipe)

Liam Richards (freeski halfpipe)

Chris McCormick (freeski slopestyle and big air)

Kirsty Muir (freeski slopestyle and big air)

Mia Brookes (freestyle snowboard slopestyle and big air)

Maisie Hill (freestyle snowboard slopestyle and big air)

Txema Mazet-Brown (freestyle snowboard slopestyle and big air)

Alpine skiing:

Billy Major (slalom)

Dave Ryding (slalom)

Laurie Taylor (slalom)

Cross-Country

James Clugnet

Joe Davies

Andrew Musgrave

Anna Pryce

Snowboard cross

Charlotte Bankes (individual and team)

Huw Nightingale (individual and team)

Ski cross

Ollie Davies

Moguls

Makayla Gerken Schofield

Mateo Jeannesson