Freeski slopestyle season set to start in Stubai this week
Nov 16, 2022·Freeski Park & Pipe
Last week we gave you the long range look-ahead at the full 2022/23 FIS Freeski slopestyle World Cup season, and now it’s time to focus in on the first competition of the new slopestyle campaign, set to go down at the Stubai Gletscher in Austria this week with finals slated for Saturday 19 November.
Qualifications there in Stubai were initially scheduled for Friday 18 November. However, with heavy snowfall forecast throughout the day on Friday, the programme in Stubai is already under stress, and qualifications have been moved to Thursday beginning with the men (in double-up judging format) at 10:15 CET.
Women’s qualies will then follow at approximately 13:40, and after that it will be a down day through Friday hoping for a weather window on Saturday to complete the full Stubai competition on schedule.
The good news is that if we are, in fact, able to complete a full qualification on Thursday, we will be able to declare results, award FIS points and hand out some prize money even if Saturday’s finals can’t be held. The bad news in that case, of course, would be that we don’t get to see the eight best women and 16 best men duke it out in the finals at Stubai, where the slopestyle course is always one of the best on tour.
Needless to say, there are a lot of crossed fingers out there right now as we watch the weather and hold our breath for the sort of thrilling slopestyle showcase on the perfectly prepared Stubai Zoo set-up that the 2022/23 season kick-off deserves.
With that out of the way, let’s take a closer look at a few of the skiers to look out for over the next few days…
SILDARU LOOKING FOR SOME MORE STUBAI MAGIC
With victories in two of her three career World Cup visits to the Stubai Zoo nobody can match Estonia’s Kelly Sildaru for success at our slopestyle season starter in Austria, and this week she’ll be looking to lock down her third triumph up on the glacier.
Sildaru is coming off the most successful World Cup season of her career, as she won three-of-three slopestyle events entered to claim the slopestyle crystal globe, while also winning slopestyle bronze at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games. Outrageously technical and unflappably consistent, Sildaru continues to improve every season, and may just now be hitting her prime at 20 years of age.
Of course, Sildaru will have to deal with a bevy of heavy hitters, with reigning Beijing 2022 slopestyle gold and big air bronze medallist (as well as PyeongChang 2018 slopestyle silver medallist) Mathilde Gremaud of Switzerland leading the way.
It’s been four years since Gremaud last hit the podium in Stubai with a third place finish at the 2018/19 edition, but one gets the feeling the the 22-year-old will be rolling into this season’s Stubai competition with a little extra swagger courtesy of all those medals in her back pocket. And, with a third-place finish already at the first event of the season at the Big Air Chur, Gremaud has some momentum on her side.
Gremaud’s teammate Sarah Hoefflin has proven herself a Stubai standout over the years, with runner-up finishes last season and in 2018/19, and she’ll be looking to restart her 2022/23 season on a strong note after being forced to sit out the action in Chur due to a crash in training.
Also looking for her third career Stubai podium this week will be Norway’s Johanne Killi, who finished third at the Zoo last season and in second place back in 2020/21.
Outside of past podium winners in Stubai one of the top skiers to look out for should be Kirsty Muir of Great Britain, who finished just outside the Stubai top-3 last season in fourth place. Muir, along with the likes of Megan Oldham and Olivia Asselin of Canada, Sandra Eie of Norway and Austria’s own Lara Wolf are a few of the others with a shot at the top-3 this week.
Tess Ledeux, winner of the 2020/21 Stubai World Cup and three-time crystal globe winner, will not compete this week due to an injury suffered in training last week.
HALL AND RUUD HEADLINING HEAVY STARTLIST
This week will mark the first time the USA’s Alex Hall has dropped in on the Stubai World Cup since the 2018/19 season - and this time he’s doing so as the reigning Olympic slopestyle champion after a barnstorming gold medal performance at Beijing 2022.
While Hall’s World Cup slopestyle podiums have been few and far between in the last few seasons, last winter’s win at the Mammoth Mountain World Cup and third-place finish at the X Games showed that he still more than has it what it takes to put it together from top to bottom - a point which he then hammered home with an Olympic performance that was pure slopestyle perfection.
However, as he rolls into his first post-Olympic competition, Hall is going to have to face down Birk Ruud (NOR), a fellow gold-medal winner who this season looks to be operating at a level above the already high expectations we have for him.
While Ruud’s Beijing 2022 gold came in big air, he walked away from last season’s World Cup as the freeski overall crystal globe winner after locking down three slopestyle wins in three slopestyle World Cup starts (including last season’s Stubai victory), while adding a big air third-place finish along the way.
After starting 2022/23 off with a big air win in Chur in which he blew minds with a brand-new trick (that may have been at least partially inspired by Hall’s final hit double cork 900 bring-back at Beijing), Ruud is now running a streak of three straight victories going back to last season, and he has five wins in his last seven World Cup starts.
Hall and Ruud are nowhere near the only heavy hitters on hand in Stubai, however, and with the top eight skiers from each qualifying heat making it through to finals we can expect to see a long list of exceptional names on Saturday’s start list.
Last year’s Freeski overall crystal globe winner Andri Ragettli has a Stubai victory from 2020/21 and has only finished outside of the top-5 four times since the 2016/17 season (with something like 20 podiums during that time), so you can pretty much bet your house on him being in the mix on Saturday.
Veteran Jesper Tjader proved he’s still a top-3 threat with a bronze medal in the Beijing 2022 slopestyle, while his fellow Scandanvian Ferdinand Dahl has three straight third place finishes in Stubai, giving him more podiums at the season opener resort than any other skier.
Fabien Boesch (SUI), Oliwer Magnusson (SWE) and Austria’s very own Matej Svancer and Lukas Muellauer are a few of the other names to watch from the European contingent.
Then there’s the North Americans.
Canada’s Max Moffat finished runner-up to Ruud last season here in Stubai, and he leads a talented group from the Great White North that also includes Aspen 2021 big air silver medallist Edouard Therriault, Evan McEachran, and Big Air Chur second place finisher Noah Porter Maclennon.
The USA is looking even stronger as a nation, with Beijing 2022 big air silver medallist and 2020/21 double crystal globe winner Colby Stevenson, 2018/19 slopestyle crystal globe winner Mac Forehand, Cody Laplante and Big Air Chur third place finisher Troy Podmilsak all amongst their starters.
Any way you slice it, it’s going to be a fun start to the slopestyle season at the Stubai World Cup, and it all gets underway on Thursday beginning at 10:15 CET.
WATCH FINALS LIVE - ORF (AUT), YLE (FIN), NRK 2 (NOR), SVT (SWE), SRG (SUI), Eurosport 2, Eurosport Player
QUICK LINKS
Stubai slopestyle World Cup data page (livescoring and results)
Photos (coming soon)
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