There is precocious, and then there is Mia Brookes.
Britain’s youngest-ever snowboarding world champion was 18 months old when she stood on a board for the first time. She was 11 when Britain’s national coaches clocked her. And she was, frustratingly, still only 14 when last year’s Winter Olympics came round, which rendered her too young to compete.
Having turned 16 last month, Brookes felt increasingly desperate to showcase her extraordinary talent. Now, finally, this week’s world championships – hosted in Bakuriani, Georgia – have provided the perfect stage.
On Monday morning, Brookes glided down the slopestyle course, twirling off rails and pipes, before launching herself into her biggest trick: a 1440 double grab that had never previously been before in a women’s event. On the BBC’s streamed coverage, the commentator laughed in a combination of amazement and delight.
Within a few seconds, the marks were in, and Brookes had scored 91.38 – a hefty 2.60 ahead of her nearest competitor, New Zealand’s Zoi Sadowski-Synnott.
“I honestly feel like I’m going to cry,” Brookes said afterwards. “I’ve never been so happy in my life.” Amazingly, this was only the second time that she had attempted her 1440-degree manoeuvre – a 20m jump in which she gripped her board twice while completing four lateral rotations in the air.
“I’d tried 1260 [degrees of rotation] in practice and I came round and almost went 14, so I knew it was possible on this jump,” she said. “My coach was like, ‘You know what? If you want to win this, just try the 14.’”
The scale of this achievement is hard for the layperson to compute. Brookes is probably the youngest world champion in the history of snowsport – a category which covers skiing and snowboarding. The only slight question mark relates to the alpine world championships of the 1930s, because the data from those events is extremely patchy. But it seems highly unlikely that any 15-year-olds were beating the world back then. Also, 1440 double grabs were unknown to the inter-war ski crowd.
So, how did Great Britain produce such a spectacular performer in winter sports – an area where a top-ten finish from Martin Bell on Ski Sunday used to be the height of our ambition? Brookes comes from the Manchester area, which is hardly rich in ski-lifts. But her parents were both keen snowboarders, and when they recognised their daughter’s talent they invested in a camper van which they used to travel around Europe’s ski resorts.
Equipped with a diesel heater, plus electric blankets to keep its passengers warm at night, this motorhome would arrive at a resort early in the season. It would then wait until spring to be disinterred from its cloaking blanket of snow.
“We’ve been in the camper van for … since I was born really,” Brookes told Telegraph Sport on Friday. “We just like travelling around in it, even though we have a house in the UK. It’s definitely a cool thing, the easiest and cheapest way to stay in Europe, and it’s so different to what everyone else is doing.
“We’ve been through an uncountable number of motorhomes,” added Brookes, who will also be competing in the big air event in Bakuriani later in the week. “Maybe seven or eight? My dad is a mechanic, so he would spend a lot of time finishing up the van and making it perfect. Then my mum would drive me out to the resort and spend the season with me.”
This trip to Georgia is in fact the first time that Brookes has not been accompanied by a parent while training or competing. “It’s definitely a big step,” she said. “But I think it’s helpful that both of my parents can be at home working and hopefully trusting me to be here on my own. It was hard at first, but I’m getting used to it now.”
Asked if her event requires a lot of bottle, she replied “Definitely. When you’re learning a trick, you’re on a dry ski-slope with airbags to make you feel more confident. But taking it to the snow is a whole different thing. There’s so much more risk of hurting yourself.”
Brookes has thus far avoided any nasty prangs on the snow, though she was present in early 2020 when her team-mate Maisie Hill smashed up her ankle on a landing.
“It’s a scary thing to witness,” Brookes said. “It’s almost like just a black cloud above you when you’re riding. I’ve learned that at that point, I just need to stop and go down the mountain or sit in the cafe for a while. I don’t have a sports psychologist, but my coaches always walk me through things and put my mind at ease.”
Brookes’ choice of sport, combined with her youth, will naturally draw comparisons with Sky Brown – the skateboarder who became Great Britain’s youngest Olympic champion when she took park bronze in Tokyo. But Brookes – who enjoys riding a skateboard when she’s in the UK – says she has yet to meet Brown in person.
“We’re like the opposites of each other,” explained Brookes, who plays the electric guitar – especially riffs by AC/DC and Led Zeppelin – for relaxation. “Like, I’m snowboarding and she skates, and we’re the same age, and we’re both on the same pathway for Great Britain. I’ve never met her, but it’ll be sick when I do.”
Source: telegraph.co.uk