France and USA crowned maiden snowboard cross world champions

The French team of Nelly Moenne Loccoz and Chloe Trespeuch topped the podium in the women's event, ahead of compatriots Manon Petit and Charlotte Bankes in second, and USA duo Lindsey Jacobellis and Faye Gulini in third.

France's success was largely aided by a crash between the USA and Italy, with five-time world champion Jacobellis narrowly avoiding a collision with Moenne Loccoz, before crashing with Italy's Raffaella Brutto.

The Italian team were later disqualified, after being deemed to have missed a gate.

Moenne Loccoz said: "It feels great to be the world champion, especially together with Chloe as we are really good friends.

"That makes it so much easier to snowboard together. We put our strengths together today.

"I was going for the quick start and she was supposed to bring it home. And that's what we did."

In the men's event, the USA duo of Hagen Kearney and Nick Baumgartner finished as runner-ups in both their quarter and semi-final races, but pulled it together when it mattered to take the world title.

Baumgartner held off the challenge of home favourite Lucas Eguibar in the closing stages to cross the finish line first, with Eguibar and Spanish teammate Regino Hernandez winning the silver medal.

Kevin Hill and Christopher Robanske of Canada won the bronze medal, ahead of Austrian pair Alessandro Haemmerle and Markus Schairer.

"This feels awesome, and it's just cool as we waited until the finals of the team event to both have our best runs on this course," said Baumgartner.

"So, if those other guys wanted to take the win, it was going to have to be us making a mistake. Unfortunately for them we didn't do that today."

Sportsbeat 2017