Aspen set for slopestyle and halfpipe World Cups at Land Rover US Grand Prix

While the Aspen 2021 FIS Snowboard and Freeski World Championships only just finished up on Tuesday, we’re right back to action at Buttermilk Mountain from Thursday through to Sunday with FIS Freeski World Cup slopestyle and halfpipe events going down at the Land Rover US Grand Prix.

Competition at this week’s World Cups will be taking place on the same Buttermilk slopestyle and halfpipe venues that have hosted the past seven days of World Championships events, and while most of the same faces from world champs are sticking around for this week’s competitions, they’ll be joined by a fresh crop of riders who are able to take advantage of the longer World Cup start lists and who are hungry to make an impact with just two weekends of competition left in the 2020/21 season.

Slopestyle qualifications kick things off for the freeskiers on Thursday, with the women dropping in at 9:20 local time (MST) followed by the men at 12:30. Finals are slated to begin at 9:30 on Saturday.

Expect essentially the full slate of athletes who were here in Aspen for the World Championships to be dropping in once again for World Cup competition, as crucial Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games qualification points are up for grabs and with a limited number of competition opportunities available for athletes to gain those points.

For the women’s slopestyle, Aspen 2021 double gold medallist Eileen Gu (CHN) leads the way, while the likes of Swiss standouts Sarah Hoefflin and Mathilde Gremaud, Tess Ledeux of France, Megan Oldham of Canada, Isabel Atkin of Great Britain, and the USA’s own Maggie Voisin can all be counted on to be in the mix come finals time.

For the men, Aspen 2021 slopestyle World Champion Andri Ragettli will not be participating in the Aspen World Cups after suffering a knee injury in world champs big air competition on Tuesday.

However, silver and bronze medallists Colby Stevenson and Alex Hall of the host US squad, along with the likes of James Woods (GBR), Jesper Tjader, Henrik Harlaut and Aspen 2021 big air gold medallist Oliwer Magnusson of the Swedish team, Even McEachran and Edouard Therriault of Canada, Switzerland’s Kim Gubser and a whole slew of others can be counted on to bring the heat over the next few days of competition.

While the programme and start lists for halfpipe competition are yet to be finalized, you can count on qualifications to begin on Friday morning, with finals currently slated to begin on Sunday at 9:30 local time.

Once again, World Champion Eileen Gu will be the favourite, though we can expect to see a stronger effort from reigning halfpipe crystal globe winner Valeria Demidova of Russia, as well as Aspen 2021 silver medallist Rachael Karker (CAN), bronze medallist Zoe Atkin (GBR), and Britt Sigourney, Hanna Faulhaber and Devin Logan of the USA to all push Gu to her outmost.

On the men’s side of things, Aspen 2021 gold medallist Nico Porteous (NZL) is the odds-on favourite after his outstanding performance last week at the World Champs.

However, with the likes of Aaron Blunck, David Wise, Birk Irving and Alex Ferreira of the US team all now aware of Porteous’ capabilities, as well as Simon D’Artois, Noah Bowman and Brendan McKay of Canada, it should be anyone’s game come finals time on Sunday.

Stay tuned to our social media channels or return to this page closer to finals for livestream links and where-to-watch TV broadcast info.

QUICK LINKS:

• Aspen World Cup Land Rover US Grand Prix data page (start lists, live scoring, results)

• Photos

• FIS Freestyle YouTube page (highlight videos and more)