Atkin and Li share women’s halfpipe Crystal Globe in World Cup first, Ferreira claims second consecutive season title
Feb 16, 2025·Freeski Park & Pipe
It was a big night under the lights in the Calgary halfpipe as Zoe Atkin and Li Fanghui ended their 2024/25 FIS Freeski World Cup season with the women’s Crystal Globe, while Alex Ferreira claimed the men’s Globe.
The USA’s Ferreira topped the overall men’s halfpipe World Cup standings on Saturday after he finished third in Calgary behind fellow U.S. skier Nick Goepper, while New Zealand teenager Finley Melville Ives claimed his first World Cup victory.
The 18-year-old Kiwi topped the final halfpipe event of the 2024/25 FIS Freeski World Cup season after taking an early lead with a first run score of 92.75 points.
Melville Ives’ winning run began with a massive left double cork 1620 mute, followed by a left alley oop dub flatspin 1080 mute, into a switch left double cork 1080 Japan, before finishing off with a right double cork 1260 safety.
Thirty-year-old Goepper came close to matching the New Zealander’s score in his second run, which earned Goepper 92.25 points from the judges. That score put him just ahead of Ferreira’s first run score of 91.75.
With the best four performances of each athlete’s five 2024/25 World Cup results counting towards their final rankings, Ferreira’s third place finish on Saturday did not change his accumulated FIS points tally of 360 points, which was easily enough to give him a second consecutive Crystal Globe and the third of his career.
“I just keep working harder and harder. I just keep putting my nose to the grindstone and getting it done. I love the training and it’s fun, it gives me a lot of purpose," said Ferreira.
For Melville Ives, winning his first World Cup and sharing the podium with Ferreira and Goepper caps off a dream season.
“I trained so hard and I’m just so happy to put down my runs," he said.
“It had been a dream run of mine for so long, to just put it down in this pipe is so unreal.”
Fellow New Zealand skier Luke Harrold finished fourth with a first run score of 89.50.
In the women’s competition, China’s Li Fanghui claimed victory with a second run score of 90.50 to take her first World Cup win, making for a season finish the likes of which has never been seen on the FIS Freeski World Cup tour.
Li’s victory, and a second place finish for Great Britain's Zoe Atkin, meant that for the first time in FIS Freeski World Cup history two athletes would share Crystal Globe honours.
Atkin's best score from three runs was her first run performance of 87.75 points. Canada’s Rachael Karker finished third with 87.00 in her third run, making it seven consecutive home-soil Calgary podiums for the 27-year-old.
Li’s winning run featured a switch right 540 tailgrab, into a left 720 cindy, then a switch right 540 tailgrab, and a switch left 720 Japan, before she finished it all off with a perfectly executed right 1080 safety.
Saturday’s victory for Li and second place for Atkin – during a season in which both skiers finished with an identical results list of one victory, two second place finishes, and a fifth – was exactly the recipe needed to result in the first Crystal Globe tie in FIS Freeski World Cup history.
Twenty-one-year-old Li did not realise she had won the Globe after topping the women’s final on Saturday night.
“I’m just so happy and so excited,” said Li.
“I was so nervous.”
The Chinese skier was previously runner-up behind Atkin in Aspen earlier in February. Li also recently claimed halfpipe gold in front of a home crowd at the Harbin 2025 Asian Winter Games on 8 February.
“This season I kept moving forward,” she said.
“Last World Cup (season) I did not do so good, so I’m so proud of myself.”
Atkin said she didn’t expect to top the overall women’s halfpipe World Cup standings after beginning the season with fifth place in Cardrona (NZL) in September.
“I started off the season kind of a little bit low on momentum, low on motivation,” she said.
Atkin and Li won the Globe by five points ahead of China’s Eileen Gu, who did not compete in Calgary and Aspen after three back-to-back halfpipe World Cup wins between September and December.
For third-placed Karker, Saturday’s result marks her 16th World Cup career podium and her third of the season after she claimed a record-setting 13th consecutive World Cup podium at the season-opener in Cardrona. Karker’s performance on Saturday also marks her seventh top-three finish in Calgary since 2019.
QUICK LINKS
Calgary Halfpipe World Cup data page (start lists, live scoring, results)
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