British Snowboarder Mia Brookes has been officially recognised as the youngest snowboarding world champion in the history of the sport, reports the Guinness World Records organisation.
Mia Brookes pictured earlier in her snowboarding career when she became the Junior World Freestyle Snowboard Champion.
At the age of 16 years 39 days, she won the women’s snowboard slopestyle at the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships in Bakuriani, Georgia, on 27 February 2023.
Mia is also Britain’s first-ever world champion in the event and rounded off her breakthrough season in senior competition with third place in the voting for the European Olympic Committees’ Piotr Nurowski Prize.
In taking third place behind Slovakian Ice Hockey starlet Nela Lopusanova and biathlete Oleksandra Merkushyna, Mia becomes Britain’s highest placing winter athlete in the history of the Piotr Nurowski Prize, and only the third British athlete in history to make the winter sport shortlist after Madi Rowlands in 2016 and Kirsty Muir in 2021, who finished fourth and fifth place respectively.
Mia fell in love with Snowboarding from a very young age, getting on a board as soon as she could walk after being encouraged to try snowboarding by her parents who spent five ski seasons in Chamonix.
In the story on the Guinness World Records website, Mia said: “They took me away snowboarding when I was 18 months old and I’ve carried on since then.
“My biggest influences have been some of the biggest names in snowboarding, like Jamie Anderson. She is a big role model of mine for how she approaches her snowboarding journey and how she deals with the mental aspect of snowboarding.”
Talking about her passion for snowboarding, Mia added: “It is the biggest part of my life and I think that every minute of it makes me love it even more, especially snowboarding with my friends and meeting new people who share the same amount of love for it as me.”
Like many athletes, Mia has had to overcome some hurdles during her snowboarding career. She explained how the most challenging part is getting injured and not being allowed to snowboard until fully recovered. In 2021 she suffered a serious concussion when she was unconscious for 40 minutes and needing to be airlifted off the snow.
On becoming a world record holder at the age of 16, Mia said: “Breaking this record at such a young age is so special to me and I’m super happy I did it during competition. I would definitely like to try and break more records in the future.”
Her advice to other girls and women is: “Find something you are really passionate about or something you really enjoy, work hard at that every day and you will find success within that.”
Categories: Racing