Fraser earns career first while Ferreira leads US sweep of Mammoth halfpipe
Feb 03, 2024·Freeski Park & Pipe
It was a bittersweet end to the halfpipe World Cup portion of competition at the Mammoth Mountain Toyota U.S. Grand Prix on Friday, as persistent wind and blowing snow forced the cancellation of finals, with Tuesday’s qualification results standing as the final results for the competition.
While the cancellation was an unfortunate outcome, the podium results for the top athletes were well-deserved from their qualification performances, with Canada’s Amy Fraser claiming her first World Cup victory in what is becoming a breakout season for the 28-year-old, and with the USA’s Alex Ferreira continuing what has been a perfect season, leading a U.S. sweep of the podium with his third World Cup win in three World Cup starts so far in 2023/24.
FRASER ENDS GU’S WIN STREAK WITH MAIDEN VICTORY
Fraser earned a third-place finish at the season-opener in Secret Garden back in December, and then last weekend stepped up for her biggest podium finish yet with a third-place finish at the X Games.
Keeping things rolling from her X Games performance, Fraser put down an exceptional run in Tuesday’s qualifications, scoring an 85.50 to best the reigning Olympic halfpipe gold medallist Eileen Gu (CHN) and Bakuriani 2023 World Championships silver medallist Zoe Atkin (GBR) for the career-milestone win.
“It’s definitely the right call that we’re not skiing in this weather today, but maybe it doesn’t feel like a true win,” Fraser said following the awards ceremony on Friday, “But coming into qualies we definitely knew it was a possibility that we wouldn’t be able to have finals, so the goal there was to throw down and to win the day.
“I’m super stoked. I’ll take the win for sure, even if it doesn’t feel like a true, true win.”
“It’s been nice to just be landing runs,” Fraser went on, discussing her season thus far, “I came into this season super hungry. I had got a lot of fourth-place finishes, .5 points off of a podium or whatever. I know my own skiing and I knew what I needed to do to, and it’s all lining up this year. Still lots of work to do, but I’m stoked.”
Fraser’s win knocked Gu off of the top of the podium for the first time in almost three years, as the biggest star in snowsports today came into Mammoth Mountain riding a streak of nine-straight halfpipe victories.
Still, with her 83.50-scoring second place finish, Gu extended her record FIS Freeski World Cup podium streak to 12 and her FIS-sanctioned competition podium streak to 15 when you include the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games.
With her score of 82.50, third place finisher Atkin now has back-to-back World Cup halfpipe podiums after a second place finish in Copper Mountain, and five career World Cup podiums.
RED HOT FERREIRA TRAIN ROLLS ON
Over on the men’s side of things Ferreira kept things rolling on what has been a perfect competition season in 2023/24, earning a score of 87.00 for his third straight World Cup victory, tying a record set by Kalle Leinonen (FIN) back in the 05/06 to 06/07 seasons.
By also claiming a resounding victory at X Games last weekend, Ferreira is putting together a campaign for the ages in 2023/24. When you consider the rumours that he’s got even more to give in the pipe than what we’ve seen from his competition runs, it’s easy to imagine him winning the final two competitions of 2023/24 two weeks from now in Calgary (CAN) to complete the perfect season.
“Obviously we would have liked have held the contest,” said Ferreira from the Mammoth base lodge, “The athletes want it, Mammoth wants it, U.S. Ski wants it, FIS wants it…but we did have a beautiful qualification day on Tuesday, and everyone knew there could be bad weather later in the week and that we had to go all-in. I was fortunate enough to go all-in and do a great run, and I’m super grateful to keep this train rolling.
“It all comes down to hard work,” the 29-year-old said when asked to explain his success in 2023/24, “I’ve been putting in lots of time in the gym and the skating rink and on rollerblades, doing everything that I possibly can. And to see all my hard work pay off is just the most beautiful thing I could ever ask for.
“I feel more cool, calm and collected than I ever have. I feel more like myself. I’ve been this for, I don’t know, 12 years as a professional. I know what I’m doing and I know if I do my best I’ll be fine. I’ve got a better sense of myself and it’s translating to the pipe.”
Second place for the men went to Hunter Hess, who narrowly missed getting his first career victory, finishing just .5 points back of Ferreira with a score of 86.50. After earning only one podium over his first seven seasons of World Cup competition, Hess is now three-for-three in 2023/24, with an X Games bronze medal from last weekend thrown in for good measure.
Finally, the U.S. team’s podium sweep for the men was rounded out by none other than Nick Goepper, the three time Olympic slopestyle medallist who retired at the end of last season, only to announce his return to competition at the start of this campaign - but this time as a halfpipe skier.
While Eileen Gu and Kelly Sildaru (EST) are the two shining examples of multi-event athletes on the women’s FIS Freeski World Cup, there is essentially no overlap between pipe and slopestyle skiers at the World Cup level on the men’s side of things. The commitment required to master one event generally precludes developing what’s required to excel at the other.
However, in just a few short months of halfpipe-focused training, 29-year-old Goepper has rocketed to a spot amongst the halfpipe world elite, and now has his first halfpipe podium of any kind in just his second halfpipe World Cup start, with all of this coming a month and a half ahead of his 30th birthday. Honestly, we’ve never seen anything quite like it, and we cannot wait to see where it all goes from here.
If the weather eases off for Saturday, competition at the Mammoth Mountain Toyota U.S. Grand Prix will continue with a big day of slopesyle action, beginning with men’s qualifications at 9:30 PST, followed by finals for both the women and men at 13:00.
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