FEATURE

World Cup Slopestyle Wraps Up in Seiser Alm

By Snow Sports New Zealand

Finn Bilous Sixth at World Cup Finals
Cardrona NZ Park & Pipe team members have been in action at the snowboard and freeski slopestyle World Cup in Seiser Alm, Italy this weekend.  Wanaka athletes Finn Bilous and Jackson Wells made it through to the top 16 freeski final with Finn finishing sixth and Jackson 13^th. Snowboarder Tiarn Collins (Queenstown) did not progress past semi-finals rounds and finished 12^th overall.

Snowboard
After finishing fourth in his qualifying heats on Wednesday (25 January) Tiarn’s plan for semi-finals was to step up the rail line by adding in a new trick - a switch backside 270 - for the first time in competition while landing a solid combination of tricks on the jumps.

Starting out well, Tiarn was able to land the new trick at the start of each of his two runs but it was the jump line which would prove his undoing. On his first attempt he carried a little too much speed into the second jump and couldn’t hold on to the landing. On to his second and final attempt and all looked to be going well, with Tiarn laying down well executed tricks off each feature right until the final landing on the final jump. Going for a cab 1080, he got the landing down but reverted, skidded out and lost points.

Freeski
With team mate Jackson Wells qualifying straight through to finals Finn Bilous still had work to do in the semi-final rounds on the freeski slopestyle World Cup. He rose to the challenge, put down a solid run and joined Wells in the final sixteen.

With a world-class field lining up for the start only the most technical of tricks and their near perfect execution would enough for a World Cup podium. Finn explains:

“Coming into the final I felt like I had a good run including a right double cork 1260 on jump one, into a switch double cork 1260 featuring a double grab, followed by a left double cork 1080 on the final jump. I put that down on run one but didn’t get the score I had hoped for so knew I had to up the level again. I decided to include three 1260s in my jumps run, changing the last one to a left double cork 1260. It’s a run I’ve never done before and it was enough for sixth in the end, I’m amped!”

Jackson Wells finished 13^th. The USA’s Colby Stevenson claimed World Cup victory with Colin Wili (SUI) second and Australia’s Russ Henshaw third.

Results: https://data.fis-ski.com/freestyle-skiing/results.html 

The Cardrona NZ Park & Pipe team now travel to Mammoth Mountain in the USA to compete at their next World Cup from 1-4 February.