Livigno (Italy) (AFP) – Spain saw one of its best medal options evaporate at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games when Lucas Eguibar suffered a fall in the snowboard cross quarterfinals, this Thursday in Livigno.

First modification: 02/12/2026 - 16:09

The 32-year-old Basque rider, world champion in 2021 and two-time Olympic diploma thanks to seventh places in Sochi 2014 and Beijing 2022, was fighting in his quarterfinal heat with three other snowboarders to achieve one of the first two positions that would give him a pass to the semifinals.

It was then that Eguibar came into contact with the American Nathan Pare, who blocked his path and after the race he was disqualified for that reason.

"I know that these are things that can happen, but obviously I am angry because we are professionals, we know what we are doing. He had to realize that that couldn't be. In fact, I could have done it in turn number 3 and I didn't," declared Eguibar as he passed through the mixed zone.

Spain has not yet won medals in Milan-Cortina, where this Thursday it has another option with Queralt Castellet in the snowboard halfpipe, an event where the 36-year-old Catalan veteran won a silver medal four years ago in Beijing.

In this Thursday's competition, Eguibar completed the qualifying round with a twelfth place, which allowed him to pass the procedure before the direct elimination rounds.

In the round of 16, Eguibar controlled the situation well and obtained one of the first two qualifying positions, being second after the Frenchman Loan Bozzolo.

Everything conveyed good feelings, with a very confident Eguibar, until that fatal fall in the quarterfinals.

In the last Olympic cycle he was severely hampered by injuries and on Wednesday he had said in an interview with AFP that he did not know if he could "mentally endure" another four such difficult years.

The other Spaniard in this event, Álvaro Romero (22 years old), debutant in the Olympic Games and born in San Sebastián as Eguibar, was eliminated in the round of 16.

Snowboard cross is precisely one of the sports that gave Spain an Olympic medal in the past: it was in 2018, when Regino Hernández won a bronze.

The gold medal in Livigno went to the Austrian Alessandro Haemmerle, with the Canadian Eliot Grondin as silver and the Austrian Jakob Dusek as bronze.

© 2026 AFP

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