Elizabeth Hosking wins women's halfpipe silver at snowboard world championships
Hosking won Canada's first world championship medal in the event on Friday
Elizabeth Hosking won Canada’s first ever world championship medal in women’s snowboard halfpipe on Friday, earning silver at the 2023 FIS Snowboard World Championships in Bakuriani, Georgia.
Hosking, from Longueuil, Quebec, scored 85.50 points, five points behind China’s Cai Xuetong (90.50), who claimed the third World Championships gold medal of her career. Japan’s Mitsuki Ono — who won gold at the 2020 Youth Olympic Games and is a two-time Junior World Championships winner — finished third with a score of 83.00.
Of the three runs each rider does in the final, only the highest score counts, with Hosking’s top score coming on her first run.
This season has been the best of Hosking’s young career, with the 21-year-old also winning her first two World Cup medals — earning in Copper Mountain, Colorado in December, and again in Calgary last month. Her previous best World Championships result was seventh in 2021.
Hosking has already competed at two Winter Olympics, and was the youngest Canadian athlete at Pyeongchang 2018, so the next few years in the leadup to Milano Cortina 2026 will be an exciting one for the up-and-coming snowboarder.
She was the only Canadian in the final of Friday’s event, after finishing second in qualifying — behind Ono and ahead of Xuetong. The only other Canadian at the event, 17-year-old Brooke D'Hondt, finished tenth in qualifying with a score of 61.25, just missing the top-eight spot required to make the final.
Hosking is just the fourth Canadian to win a world championships medal in the event, and the first woman. Justin Lamoureux won a silver medal in 2005 in Whistler, Brad Martin won bronze in 2007, and Jeff Batchelor earned a silver medal in 2009.
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