Snowboard’s next wave of global stars
Few sports embrace the youth spirit quite like snowboard, whose culture thrives on creativity, daring, and the fearlessness that often comes with being too young to know what is supposed to be impossible. That combination makes it fertile ground for breakout performances at Milano Cortina 2026, and there is no shortage of teenagers ready to make an impact.
Britain’s Mia Brookes (18) is one of those daring riders. And while she may be considered a youngster for the purposes of this article, she has nearly 17 years of experience under her belt already.
She first stepped onto a board at just 18 months old, and by 11 was already competing at the British Snowboard Championships in Laax, Switzerland. She rose rapidly through the junior ranks, taking big air gold and slopestyle silver at the 2022 Junior Worlds and narrowly missing an Olympic debut at Beijing 2022 due to age restrictions.
In 2023, Brookes became the youngest ever snowboard world champion and the first Brit to win a slopestyle world title – landing the first-ever CAB 1440 by a woman in competition – before adding a Big Air World Cup crown and X Games podiums to her list of accolades. So, to say that she is ready for her Olympic debut would be a massive understatement.
From across the Atlantic, American Ollie Martin has also packed quite some experience into his less than two decades. The 17-year-old has a big air silver at the Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024, where he became the youngest snowboarder ever to land a 2160 – a feat that instantly put him on the radar of the sport’s most technical elite.
By February 2025, he had claimed his first World Cup gold in slopestyle, making him the youngest male rider to win at that level, and went on to take double bronze at his debut senior World Championships in both slopestyle and big air.
But perhaps some of the youngest names in contention hail from Asia. Republic of Korea’s Choi Gaon, just 16, has already earned comparisons to some of the sport’s greats after she stunned the sport by winning her country’s first-ever X Games medal and becoming the youngest women’s superpipe champion in history, toppling a record that had stood for seven years.
Even younger is Japan’s YOG silver medallist Shimizu Sara, the 15-year-old who shocked the world with her senior 2025 Asian Games championship title and 2025 halfpipe world championship silver. Her poise under pressure belies her young age – a trait that could make her a serious contender on her Olympic debut.