FRANCE – Britt Richardson is championship material.
In a super competitive field, the elite alpine skier from Canmore won gold in the women’s giant slalom (GS) at the 2024 FIS Junior World Ski Championships on Friday (Feb. 2) in Port du Soleil, France.
It is Richardson’s first medal at a Junior World Ski Championships and might be a glimpse of what’s still to come from the promising 20-year-old Canadian.
“I’m just super happy with how the day went and having a world junior championship medal is just super exciting and I’ve been wanting this for the past couple years,” said Richardson.
"I felt a lot of pressure coming into this race. I feel like there was a lot of expectations for me to win, but a lot [I put] just on myself, so to be able to kinda put that all together in one day and have two solid runs was really nice.”
Her overall time was 2:01.96 – 0.81 seconds quicker than Stefanie Grob of Switzerland in second place (2:02.77), who is a four-time junior world championship medallist.
Two-time junior world championship medallist Lara Colturi of Albania took bronze (2:03.14).
Richardson has skied aggressively all season, a bold approach that sometimes causes wipeouts, but it's also given her career-best results on the World Cup and, in this case, a gold medal at the biggest event of the year for junior skiers.
The quick Canmore skier results were called “extremely impressive” by Erik Read, a long-time national ski team athlete and two-time Olympian.
Read spoke to the significance of medalling at the junior worlds, which is “the last big thing” before focus shifts over to the World Cup and World Championships.
“It’s one of the best leading indicators to show success or medal potential at the World Cup a few years down the line,” said Read.
“If you look at a lot of big names on the World Cup circuit and almost all of them have world juniors medals. It’s really one of the biggest accomplishments you can achieve as a junior. Hats off to Britt for being able to pull it off.”
With the No. 3 bib, Richardson bolted to the front of the pack to lead after her GS first run (59.44) at the French ski hill. She had a 0.45-second head start for the final run, but also a few hours to think about.
To avoid mounting pressure between the two runs, Richardson said she tried not to think about being in the lead. She said she approached the brief intermission like a normal race and with a clear mind, a routine that her coaches have been preaching to her.
“We always keep a routine for the athlete to feel kind of safe inside it,” said Pierre Miniotti, Alpine Canada’s first-year coach for women’s GS and super-G.
Miniotti started working with Richardson for the first-time last summer and said he saw immediate “big potential” in the 20-year-old slopes star.
A gold medal had always been the goal at the highly-anticipated junior worlds GS for the team.
“Our target was going there to win it and it’s not easy because you kind of have a pressure to handle all the time, but she’s pretty confident and she’s a girl that always loves to work on improvements,” said Miniotti. “Even after the first run, she was not 100 per cent happy about all the things she did ... so we set a strategy for the second one and she acted on it exactly as we talked about.”
With pressure to perform, Richardson’s next run was the second fastest time – 0.07 seconds slower than USA’s Liv Moritz – but it didn’t matter as the Canuck was way out in front at that point.
“It’s just a huge relief to have a medal here, and for it to be a gold medal,” said Richardson. “I think there’s been maybe a lack of confidence in some races leading up to this, so to be able to leave this with the medal was really nice. My mom was here and my aunt and uncle, so it’s really nice to celebrate with them and have them here on this special day.”
Richardson’s father, Grant, program director at Calgary Alpine, was back home in Canmore during his daughter’s race.
Due to the time difference and lack of broadcasting coverage, Grant was watching the live-timing text updates of the two runs from between 1 and 6 a.m.
Nonetheless, he said it was exciting to see his daughter’s name pop up at the top of the standings after the second run.
“Having fallen short the year prior, I was pretty happy for her,” said Grant.
Having coached Richardson in her early days of development on the hills, Grant said he has a lot of confidence in her abilities. On the national ski team since she was 18, Grant said he’s noticed she’s more mature because of it.
The results she’s been getting over the past 12 months – from a top-15 personal best on the World Cup circuit and medals at major events, has kind of been expected.
“From a very young age, this is what [Britt] wanted to do,” said Grant. [She’s] living the dream and that’s pretty cool, regardless of what the outcomes are or how far [she] takes it.
“She’s loving it and having fun with it and learning a lot along the way, so it's all good.”
With the victory, Richardson put the disappointment of last year’s junior world championships behind her when she crashed during the second run in St. Anton, Austria. Like this year, the Canuck had been leading the race before she wiped out halfway down the course.
“Last year, having a DNF after winning first run was a little bit devastating so to have a little bit of redemption today and actually finish with the gold medal is exciting,” said Richardson.
The victory automatically qualifies Richardson for the GS World Cup Finals in March, which is the season finale that only the top-25 ranked athletes compete in to determine overall rankings.
A star in the making
Coming from a ski family, Richardson has made headlines since she was a teenager, finding the podium from the local to national levels.
An alum of Burke Mountain Academy, a top-ranked skiing school that’s had world-class athletes like Mikaela Shiffrin walk its hallways, Richardson has had the distinction of being the youngest athlete on the national ski team since she was 18.
Now at age 20, Richardson has medalled at both junior worlds and world championships events.
Last season, the underdog Canadian team of Richardson, Erik Read and Jeff Read of Canmore, and Ontario’s Valerie Grenier won bronze in the mixed team parallel in Meribel, France, after defeating ski heavyweights Austria in the small final.
Racing on the World Cup circuit, Richardson is quickly establishing herself as an emerging threat in GS. This season, the quick Canuck has had three top-20 results, with a career-best 15th place on Canadian soil in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec in December 2023.
