In official confirmation of InTheSnow’s breaking news last week, Katie Ormerod was today crowned by the International Ski Federation as the 2019/20 Snowboard Slopestyle Crystal Globe winner following her best ever season.
The Yorkshire athlete has been leading the snowboard slopestyle World Cup tour since January, but was handed the globe yesterday after confirmation came through that attempts to replace the final event of the season (due to take place in the Czech Republic but cancelled due to the COVID-19 virus) were unsuccessful.
The much-coveted FIS Crystal Globe is awarded to athletes who amass the most FIS points in their discipline across the season. Ormerod becomes the first British female as well as the first British snowboarder to receive the globe, though she is the second GB Snowsport athlete overall; GB Snowsport team-mate James Woods won the ski slopestyle Crystal Globe in 2013.
Katie Ormerod was speaking after the result was announced and said: “I’m so excited to be the overall World Cup Slopestyle Champion. I have finished this season with 5 World Cup podiums, 3 yellow bibs and my first ever Overall World Cup Slopestyle title and Crystal Globe.”
“My comeback season has turned out to be the best season of my career so far and it’s been so much fun.”
Katie was quick to thank those who have supported her on this journey saying: “Thank you to everyone who has supported me, including my fans, my coach Hamish McKnight, GB Snowsport and my sponsors.”
Katie has been a consistently outstanding performer this season, with four slopestyle podium finishes since returning to snow this season. She was previously out of the sport for 18 months after she sustained a broken heel on the eve of the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, where she was tipped as one of GB’s top medal hopes.
After finishing third in Laax in November 2019 Ormerod has made four straight top 3 finishes in World Cup events. The results included a second place in Seiseralm, Italy and third place in Calgary and Mammoth (U.S).
Katie amassed 2600 slopestyle FIS points and had been World Tour leader since the end of January.
To round off her incredible comeback season, Katie also finished second – by only 240 points behind winner Cai Xuetong (CHN) – in the overall Park & Pipe standings and fourth in the Big Air standings after finishing second in the Cordona, New Zealand World Cup in August of 2019.
Vick Gosling OBE, Chief Executive Officer of GB Snowsport, said: “Katie has made a phenomenal return to competitive snowboarding this season and has performed amazingly well.”
“We are so proud of Katie’s resilience and determination to succeed and we are so excited for the future. This is GB Snowsport’s second ever Crystal Globe – first in snowboarding- and it just goes to show how far the organisation has come in terms of competitive podiums in the last 18 months.”
A date for the formal presentation of the Crystal Globe will be announced soon by the International Ski Federation.
