New year brings new freeski stars at first Big Air Klagenfurt
Jan 04, 2025·Freeski Park & Pipe
A new generation of freeski big air stars have made their mark on the inaugural Big Air Klagenfurt as the FIS Freeski World Cup season resumed this week in Austria.
Liu Mengting (CHN) was the first to claim freeski big air victory at Woerthersee Stadium on Saturday with a total score of 170.60 in the women’s event, just 0.20 points ahead of runner-up Flora Tabanelli (ITA).
The victory is Liu’s first World Cup podium and just the second big air victory ever for a Chinese freeskier, after Eileen Gu won the Steamboat (USA) big air back in 2020/21.
For Tabanelli, meanwhile, Saturday’s result was her third podium of the 2024/25 World Cup season and her fifth overall since making the switch from junior to senior competition in 2023.
Muriel Mohr (GER) claimed third place with 166.20 points, her second podium finish of her World Cup career after also taking third place at the big air season opener in Chur in October.
Twenty-year-old Liu qualified at the top of the group on Friday, with Tabanelli also trailing Liu in qualifications.
On Saturday it was 17-year-old Tabanelli who had the highest-scored women’s run of the evening after she received 91.00 points for her left double cork 1260 safety on run one.
However, Tabanelli’s third run score of 79.20 was not enough to close the gap with Liu, whose second run score of 85.40 and first run score of 85.20 put her ahead of Tabanelli’s total by just 0.20 points.
Liu’s first run featured a left double cork 1080 safety, which she followed up with a double cork 1080 in her second run.
Swiss skier Anouk Andraska finished fourth and was the only Swiss skier to finish within the top five. Compatriots Sarah Hoefflin and Mathilde Gremaud - last season’s Crystal Globe winner - finished at the bottom of the finals in seventh and eighth place respectively after falling in their runs.
In the men’s freeski big air, New Zealander Luca Harrington (NZL) proved unbeatable after he was awarded the highest score of the evening with 94.80 for his first run, which featured a switch right triple 1620 esco double grab.
The 20-year-old followed his first run with a right double 1080 bring-back 900 Japan in his second run to comfortably take the win with a total of 182.60 and complete a victory lap in his third and final run.
“With such a big crowd makes it extra special. Under the lights with the music pumping, it’s been great.”
Along with his first World Cup victory, Harrington also made some national history for his home nation, becoming the first New Zealander to stand atop a World Cup podium and just the second Kiwi to earn a World Cup big air top-3.
Runner-up honours went to French skier Timothe Sivignon, who earned his second career World Cup podium with a score of 180.40, while local favourite Matej Svancer (AUT) claimed third place with 175.40 points.
Saturday’s result marks Svancer’s second podium of the season after winning the Big Air World Cup opener in Chur in October. Sivignon last appeared on a World Cup podium in 2022 at Copper Mountain.
Meanwhile, Swiss skier Andri Ragettli finished just outside the podium in Klagenfurt in fourth place. Ragettli also finished outside the podium in fifth place at the most recent big air World Cup in Beijing in December.
Norway’s Tormod Frostad was a surprise absence from the finals after the Big Air World Cup standings leader did not make it through his qualification heat earlier in the day. Miro Tabanelli (ITA) also did not qualify for the finals.
Nevertheless, Frostad still leads the discipline standings with three big air World Cup events of the season completed and three to go.
With Saturday’s second-place finish, Tabanelli leads the women’s Big Air World Cup standings after overtaking last season’s Crystal Globe winner Mathilde Gremaud.
The next big air event of the FIS Freeski World Cup calendar will take place in Kreischberg, Austria between 9 and 10 January 2025.
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