Ski Slopestyle Men Final // MCRAE WILLIAMS Gold
Ski Slopestyle Women Final // KAYA TURSKI Gold
After 24 hours in a snowstorm, Tignes woke up to a bright blue sky this morning. It was the snowboarders that opened the slopestyle course with the Men’s elimination rounds which led to many surprise eliminations.
Among the pre-event favourites that will not take part in the finals are Chas Guldemond, Yuki Kadono and the young Seppe Smits and Max Parrot who respectively took Silver and Bronze at Aspen in January 2013! The competition is still very much open with Torstein Horgmo, Mark Mc Morris, Sebastien Toutant and Peetu Piiroinen making tomorrow's finals.
A large crowd gathered above the course early on in the afternoon, to enjoy the show provided by the Ski Slopestyle final. A final that would indeed be full of surprises; with all the pre-race favourites out, this left the field wide open for all the outsiders that were in great shape.
McRae Williams set the bar very high right from the start with a first run that scored 90 points to put him in the lead. The Park City rider rammed this home on his second run and further increased his lead with a score of 94,33. With a nose butter 540 into the first rail, followed by a rodeo 900 blunt, a switch right double cork 1080 safety and a switch double cork 1080 blunt to shifty; he managed to perfectly combine style and technique and still remain creative in the rail section.
Even if McRae wasn’t at all expected in the top place today his victory is well deserved. “I still haven’t completely realised, it’s amazing” he commented. Jossi wells, the kiwi rider that was the first one qualified yesterday finished second just in front of Gus Kenworthy in third place. But there’s no respite for those two since they will be taking part in the SuperPipe elimination rounds tonight. “It’s definitely a big day for us” explained Gus, “but we’ll try to use this success as a motivator in the superpipe”.
On the women’s side the Canadian rider Kaya Turski dominated the Slopestyle once again, with a clean and technical run. “I’m not interested in getting involved in a rotation contest” she commented. “I’d rather work on style and technical aspects by including spins on different axis’”. The recent Aspen Gold medal winner, Norwegian Tiril Sjåstad Christiansen who landed a nice 900 tail in her run, came in second just behind Kaya. Canadian rider Dara Howell repeated her third place finish from last year's X Games Tignes.
Catch up on Wednesday's X Games action here.
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