Slopestyle World Cup season preview 2024/25
Nov 20, 2024·Freeski Park & Pipe)
The 2024/25 FIS Freeski World Cup is set to kick into high gear this week, with the first slopestyle World Cup of the new season going down from 21-23 November at the world-famous Stubai Zoo in Austria.
Stubai will be the first of five slopestyle World Cups on deck this winter, with three of those slated for Europe and the other two for North America. Once the World Cup season is over, we wrap up the winter as a whole with the biggest snow sports event of 2024/25 at the Engadin-St. Moritz 2025 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships.
We’ve already thrown together an in-depth look at the big air World Cup season HERE, so below we’ll take a closer look at the venues of the slopestyle circuit specifically, before taking a minute to highlight some of the stars to watch in slopestyle action this season.
The qualification period for the Milano-Cortina 2025 Olympic Winter Games is now in full swing, which means the stakes are higher than ever at every competition throughout the season. Read on to find out what to expect in a hugely important 2024/25 campaign.
VENUES
STUBAI (AUT) - 22-23 NOV 2024
The Stubai Zoo is, was and shall remain one of the freeski world’s most favourite park lines, with its ideal pitch, hefty jump line, and near year-round accessibility meaning that essentially anybody and everybody spends at least a week or two sessioning the spot at some point every season.
A FIS Freeski World Cup fixture and the northern hemisphere slopestyle season-opener since the 2017/18 season, Stubai will be looking to bounce back from a weather-shortened event last season with some better conditions this year, hopefully allowing the world’s finest freeskiers the opportunity to open 2024/25 with a bang this week.
LAAX (SUI) - 14-17 JAN 205
After a nearly two-month break where big air and halfpipe take over the FIS Freeski World Cup competition stage, slopestyle gets back to action in a big way at the 2025 Laax Open, where the freeskiers will once again be part of the festivities at what has been considered the biggest snowboard competition week in Europe for a decade.
While this season will mark freeski’s third turn at the Laax Open, for the snowboarders this season’s iteration marks the 10th anniversary of the competition, meaning that the most prestigious event on the World Cup circuit can be counted on to be even bigger and badder than ever this winter.
ASPEN (USA) U.S. GRAND PRIX - 30 JAN-06 FEB 2025
We said it in the big air preview and we’ll say it here again: What is shaping up to be the biggest week in FIS Park & Pipe World Cup history will be going down at Aspen’s legendary Buttermilk resort from the end of January into early February.
No resort in the 21-year history of the FIS Freeski World Cup has stepped up to host slopestyle, big air and halfpipe World Cup competitions for freeski and snowboard in the same week, but this winter Aspen is taking on the challenge, and we cannot wait to see how it all goes down at one of the world’s preeminent ski resorts.
STONEHAM (CAN) - 20-22 FEB 2025
While Stoneham only has one previous turn hosting FIS Freeski World Cup action to its credit, make no mistake, the resort is a legendary one in the history of East Coast freeskiing, and with a storied snowboard World Cup pedigree also to draw on, you can count on the penultimate event of the slopestyle World Cup season bringing something special to the table.
Located less than 30 minutes north of historic Quebec City, Stoneham has hosted snowboard slopestyle World Cup competitions on five occasions, as well as the 2013 sloepstyle World Championships. While small in vertical drop, Stoneham is big in heart and deep in history, and we can’t wait to see how things shake down there this February.
TIGNES MOUNTAIN SHAKER (FRA) - 11-14 MAR 2025
For 10 of the past 11 seasons, the freeski slopestyle World Cup has come to a close in March at Silvaplana’s Corvatsch resort. However, with Corvatsch one of the venues for this season’s Engadin-St. Moritz 2025 World Championships, the honours of the 2024/25 FIS Freeski Slopestyle World Cup finale will land instead at Tignes’ doorstop this season.
With the top athletes on hand looking for one more chance to battle for the slopestyle and big air Crystal Globes at one of the most picturesque and celebrated resorts on earth, while also looking for one more tune up before the World Championships in Switzerland, our mid-March stop in the French Alps is shaping up to be a truly epic one.
ONES TO WATCH - WOMEN
Slopestyle is Mathilde Gremaud’s world, and everybody else is just living in it. The reigning Olympic and World Championships slopestyle gold medallist, Gremaud rolls into 2024/25 fresh off of becoming the first woman in FIS Freeski World Cup history to claim three Crystal Globes in one season after earning the honours for Slopestyle, Big Air and Freeski Overall.
Gremaud took the win in three of her five slopestyle starts last season, while finishing second behind Tess Ledeux (FRA) in the other two events. With a total of six wins and nine podiums in her nine starts, Gremaud’s 2024/25 season was straight up one of the greatest FIS Freeski World Cup campaigns of all time. And, with a win to open the 2024/25 season at the Big Air Chur, the 24 year old is now tied with Ledeux and men’s leader Birk Ruud (NOR) for second on the all-time FIS Freeski wins list with 14.
If Gremaud’s the slopestyle queen, then Ledeux is the most dangerous challenger to the throne.
Dating back to the start of the 2020/21 season, the 22-year-old (she turns 23 on November 23rd) Ledeux has missed the slopestyle World Cup podium only three times in her last 14 starts, with eight of those podiums coming in the form of victories. All in all, Ledeux has 11 slopestyle wins in her World Cup career, putting her atop the women’s all-time rankings and in a tie with Andri Ragettli for the most slopestyle wins of any skier in FIS Freeski history.
The only skier with more total wins than Gremaud and Ledeux is the one and only Eileen Gu, the Beijing 2022 Olympic slopestyle silver medallist and an athlete/fashion icon/intellectual force of nature the likes of which the world has rarely seen.
While Gu has only dropped in on one slopestyle World Cup since her silver medal performance at Beijing, she showed that even when a little rusty she’s still a powerhouse, with a second place finish at last season’s Laax Open. While we don’t know when - or if - she’ll be on the scene for any slopestyle World Cups this season, if she is on the start list, chances are we’ll find her in the top three by the end of competition.
The fastest-rising skier on last seasons’ slopestyle World Cup tour was the USA’s Jay Riccomini, who finished third overall on the slopestyle rankings in 2023/24 after earning the first two World Cup podiums of his career. Along with Rell Harwood and Eleanor Andrews, the young U.S. team looks to be coming up in a big way.
Last season’s slopestyle fourth overall Ruby Star Andrews (NZL), slopestyle/halfpipe double threat Kelly Sildaru (EST), PyeongChang 2018 Olympic gold medallist Sarah Hoefflin (SUI), silky smooth Anni Karava (FIN), rising star Flora Tabanelli (ITA), and style master Olivia Asselin (CAN) are a few of the other top contenders on the women’s side of things.
Finally, keep a close eye on Canada’s Megan Oldham, as the two-time World Championships slopestyle medallist returns to World Cup competition for the first time since the 2022/23 season, after undergoing knee surgery at the start of last winter. Still the only woman to land a triple cork in competition, when she’s at her best Oldham is in the best-in-the-world conversation with Gremaud, Ledeux and Gu, and her return to the competition scene is a very welcome one, indeed.
ONES TO WATCH - MEN
As always, it’s a crowded space at the top of the men’s slopestyle world, with a dozen - or more - rippers capable of walking away with the W at any given competition. However, after last season it’s safe to say that the USA has reclaimed the top spot in the national powerhouse rankings, and will be looking to hammer that fact home even harder in 2024/25.
Claiming top spot on the overall and the Crystal Globe last season was Mac Forehand, as the 23-year-old earned the season’s slopestyle trophy for the second time in his career. With a win and two second-place finishes, and top five results in all five of his slopestyle World Cup starts, Forehand was far and away the best and most consistent skier on tour last winter.
Just behind Forehand was his friend and teammate Alex Hall as the reigning Olympic gold medallist put together the most complete World Cup season of his career, with a win and a third place finish in slopestyle competition helping him to earn second place overall. The 26-year-old also claimed the first Crystal Globe of his career by taking top spot on the big air World Cup, and the man known as one of the most innovative skiers in the freeski world continues to dazzle.
And, with the likes of Konnor Ralph, Colby Stevenson, Hunter Henderson, Troy Podmilsak and Cody Laplante all dropping in for the U.S. team this season, it could very easily be a sweep of the top three on the slopestyle rankings by season end.
Speaking of 26-year-olds who show no signs of slowing down, Swiss star Andri Ragettli remains one of freeskiing’s most powerful forces, finishing in the top three last season for the ninth time in his 11-season strong World Cup career. Last seasons Ragettli became the first freeskier to reach the World Cup 30-podium mark with a third place finish in the Tignes big air competition, before capping his 2023/24 campaign off with a win in Silvaplana (SUI).
Ragettli’s 31 total podiums, 22 slopestyle podiums and 11 slopestyle victories are all FIS Freeski World Cup benchmarks, and you can count on all of those numbers to rise again this season.
Behind Ragettli and outside of the top three on the slopestyle overall rankings for the first time since 2020/21 was Birk Ruud, after last winter experiencing something of a down season (by his own very lofty standards).
The slopestyle, big air and FIS Freeski overall Crystal Globe winner in 2022/23, Ruud managed ‘only’ two podiums in 2023/24. It should be noted, however, that one of those podiums was a victory at perhaps the biggest World Cup stop of the season at the Laax Open.
Throw in the fact that Ruud is the reigning slopestyle World Champion and holds the record for the most men’s FIS Freeski World Cup victories of all time with 14, and you can expect the 24-year-old to step things up once again this season as he looks to defend that World Champs gold and catch Eileen Gu for the most freeski World Cup victories mark, full stop, for the men or the women.
With the likes of Luca Harrington (NZL), Matej Svancer (AUT), Tormod Frostad (NOR), Max Moffat (CAN), Miro Tabanelli (ITA), Jesper Tjader (SWE), Elias Syrja (FIN) and a seemingly endless roster of other unbelievably talented rippers set to drop in on this season and set their courses for a spot at the Olympic Winter Games in Italy next year, the drama, progression and entertainment on display throughout the 2024/25 FIS Freeski Slopestyle World Cup season is sure to be serious from start to finish.
It all gets underway this week at the Stubai Zoo! Stay tuned for plenty more…
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