Freeski halfpipe season set to take off at Copper Mountain
Dec 15, 2022·Freeski Park & Pipe
The 2022/23 FIS Freeski halfpipe World Cup season finally gets underway this week, with the Toyota US Grand at Copper Mountain (USA) serving as the jumping off point for a new campaign for the seventh time in the past eight seasons.
Qualifications in Copper will take place on Thursday, 15 December beginning at 9:25 MT with the women, followed by men’s heat one at 11:30 and men’s heat two at 13:35. Finals are then slated for Saturday, beginning at 13:00. The top eight women, and the top five men from each heat of qualifications (for a total of 10 men) will make it through to finals.
Copper is the first of four halfpipe World Cups on the calendar for this season, with our season-opening Colorado stop then be followed by a pair of competitions in Calgary (CAN) from 19-21 January 2023, before we close the pipe season out in Mammoth Mountain (USA) from 01-04 February.
Copper has served as the venue for FIS Freeski World Cup competitions as part of the Toyota US Grand Prix a total of 10 times over the years, and with their longstanding history of successful hosting, a expertly fresh-cut pipe, and the world’s finest on hand here in Summit County, we’re looking forward to firing things up on a high note this week.
Read on for some of the likely standouts to keep an eye on this week in Copper…
SILDARU LOOKING TO SEIZE COPPER OPPORTUNITY
While the reigning Olympic halfpipe gold medallist, World Champion and crystal globe winner Eileen Gu (CHN) is, in fact, on the scene here in Copper, she will unfortunately not be competing this week.
Gu missed out on pre-season training due to university and other commitments, and is taking the opportunity to get some training in at Copper this week with an eye on returning to competition in the new year. There’s nothing confirmed on that front yet, but the freeski world and its fans eagerly await the date she steps back into the mix.
With Gu instead serving as the world’s highest-profile forerunner here in Copper, it’s up to the rest of the field to pick up the slack, and the likes of Kelly Sildaru (EST), Rachael Karker (CAN), Hanna Faulhaber (USA) and Britt Sigourney will look to do just that.
Sildaru is the Park City 2019 World Champion and has five FIS Freeski halfpipe World Cup podium to her credit - including a win in Copper in 2018/19 and a third-place finish here last season. Sildaru was the Freeski overall runner-up to Gu in the crystal globe battle last season, and with Gu missing the first half of 2022/23 the door may be open for the Estonian to claim the first big globe of her career this season.
Karker, meanwhile, won bronze at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games last season, just two months after earning a second place finish here in Copper. One of the biggest boosters in pipe skiing, Karker’s also got a deep bag of tricks to match, and could well be on her way to a Copper victory if she puts it all together this week.
Speaking of amplitude, the biggest booster in women’s pipe has to be the USA’s own Faulhaber, and the 18-year-old comes into her home soil competition fresh off a breakout 2021/22 campaign that saw her earn her first two World Cup podiums and top-5 finishes in four-out-of-four events entered.
Then there’s Sigourney, the veteran of the US team who will be dropping in on her 30th World Cup this week. Sigourney boasts five previous Copper podiums, including two victories, with the last top-3 here in Copper coming back in the 2019/20 season. The 32-year-old will be looking for a little more of that magic in the coming days.
US SQUAD ROLLING DEEP AT HOME SOIL SEASON-OPENER
Over on the men’s side of things the heavily stacked US squad might be eyeing up a sweep of the podium if all the pieces fall into place, with a roster of Olympic medallists, World Champions and X Games winners that’s the envy of the halfpipe world.
David Wise, Aaron Blunck, Alex Ferreira, Birk Irving, Dylan Ladd, Hunter Hess, a next-gen team that boasts the likes of Matthew Labaugh and Cameron Broderick…the list goes on and on for the US team.
Wise is a three-time Olympic medallist, including two golds and silver at the Beijing 2022 Games last season, and despite the fact he’s now 32 years old, the father of two continues to get the job done, season after season. Like his fellow veteran Sigourney on the women’s side, Wise has two wins and five career podiums at Copper Mountain, with his last one coming back in 2019/20.
Last season was something of a down year for Blunck, who only competed in World Cup events at Copper and Mammoth, earning a third at the latter event. Blunck also qualified in first place at the Games in China but just couldn’t put it together in the tough finals conditions. Still just 26-years-old, the two-time World Champion will be out to prove he has plenty left in the tank despite a bit of a struggle last season.
Ferreira earned his second-straight Olympic medal last winter in Beijing when he followed up Wise to take bronze, and the 28-year-old finished in a tie for last season’s crystal globe which he eventually lost out on by tiebreaker.
Who’d Ferreira lose out to? None other than Brendan Mackay of Canada, who came third last season in Copper before taking back-to-back victories on home soil in Canada, with those two wins giving him the edge over Ferreira come tiebreak time. With Mackay, Simon D’Artois, Noah Bowman and Dylan Marineau the Canadians represent the biggest challenge to the host US squad.
However, there’s a few others to factor in as well, with New Zealand’s Gustav Legnavsky and Ben Harrington, Jon Sallinen of Finland, Switzerland’s Rafael Kreienbuehl and maybe even China’s Mao Bingqiang possible finalists come Saturday.
WHERE TO WATCH (livestream links below)
skiandsnowboard.live (USA), Eurosport Asia, CBC streaming (CAN), CCTV16 (CHN), CT Sport Plus streaming (CZE), TV3 Sport 3HD (EST), V Sport + (FIN, NOR), L’Equipe streaming (FRA), TV3 Sport (LAT, LIT), ESPN Latin America, Polsat Sport News (POL), JOJ Sport (SVK), V Sport Vinter (SWE), SRG SSR (SUI), Viaplay streaming (GBR)
QUICK LINKS
Copper Mountain Toyota US Grand Prix halfpipe World Cup data page (start lists, livescoring, results)
YouTube livestream (with geo restrictions)
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