Waking up as Olympic Champion can be described in one word for Huw Nightingale: 'Rough'.
The celebrations went on all night in Livigno as Nightingale, 24, and Charlotte Bankes, 30, toasted to becoming Team GB's first ever gold medallists on snow, and the newly crowned snowboard cross mixed team champions were feeling the after effects the following morning.
But while the celebrations continue, the realisation that they have gold medals around their necks has still not hit.
In fact both snowboarders admitted that they are yet to believe that Sunday's golden antics actually happened, with the duo taking victory ahead of Italy and France in a dramatic mixed team final that saw medal favourite Australia crash out.
It marked the second medal, and second gold of Milano Cortina 2026 for Team GB, with the nation having never won two golds in one single Games before.
"I feel rough but it's amazing," said Nightingale. "I don't think I've yet realised that we are Olympic champions and I think it will settle in in a few days but at the moment it's still a surreal feeling.
"In the last four years, we've had this goal in mind to go to the Olympics and win gold so it was a night where we could relax with our family and have a few drinks. We went out a bit as well.
"It was just a relief to be honest. To have nothing on your mind and to have achieved what you wanted feels like a weight off our chests."
The Livigno Snow Park had not seen a Team GB athlete on the podium until Sunday, with painful near misses for both Mia Brookes and Kirsty Muir in their opening events.
That meant that the pressure was building for Nightingale and Bankes who hoped to translate their 2023 World Championship gold into the Olympic kind in Italy.
They had both already felt disappointment in their individual events, with the pressure on Bankes' shoulders as a former world champion and 25-time World Cup winner meaning that her quarter-final exit stung harder than most.
The snowboarder was coming into her fourth Olympics in search of a maiden medal but her preparation was stunted by a collarbone injury back in April 2025.
Only returning to the snow in December, and immediately winning World Cup golds, it meant that Bankes' name was flying around headlines to add to Team GB's medal haul.
It meant it was relief as well as joy for the mercurial talent who has now delivered.
"This was always the hoped destination," she said.
"It has not been easy and we saw this week that it can go badly. I had a really bad performance personally in the individual but we used that strength as a team to bounce back, give everything and have fun, which is how we ride the best.
"Hopefully there will now be some more medals for Team GB on their way as we have some good chances.
"We needed to get that first medal in snowsports to keep it rolling.
"It is a massive weight sometimes when it doesn't start that well.
"Having Kirsty and Mia come fourth and so close, it felt like it needed to go our way and so for the whole team to finally get those medals is so important."
With Kirsty Muir in her second final of the Games in the freeski big air and freeski halfpipe world champion and X Games winner Zoe Atkin still to come in Livigno, Bankes and Nightingale may not be the only British medallists in Livigno.
Bankes was born in Hemel Hempstead and Nightingale in Bolton, and while they both now live in the snowy peaks of France and Austria, they hope that their gold can be a beacon for more Brits to pick up a snowboarding, or a pair of skis. After all, with a gold on the snow, our raining shores can officially call itself a true snowsport nation.
"We are showing that GB is becoming a snowsports nation and we can be proud of what we have done this Games," said Nightingale
"There is such little base in the UK for snowsports but we want to grow that and inspire a lot of kids at home to do it."
Sportsbeat 2026