Nikitina and Roth take aerials gold at the Junior World Ski Championships in Minsk
Aug 31, 2018·Freestyle
Minsk (BLR) - The first competition of the 2018 FIS Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships took place on Thursday, February 24 at the Raubichi National Winter Olympic Training Centre located on the outskirts of Belarus’ capital city of Minsk.
Inspired by strong showings from the world’s best aerialists at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Korea, the future freestyle skiing champions filled the event in Belarus with excitement as Liubov Nikitina (RUS) and Noe Roth (SUI) flew to gold in wintry conditions. Performing a back double full-full and a back double full-double full respectively earned them enough points (76.14 and 101.40) to take top spots.
It was a tight decision on the ladies’ side as a mere 0.54 points separated silver medallist Shao Qi (CHN) from the title. Carol Douvard (SUI) took bronze with 72.45 points. Over on the men’s side Dzmitry Mazurkevich (BLR) and Sun Jiaxu (CHN) grabbed silver and bronze with 94.11 and 93.06 points respectively.
The regaining Junior World Champion from Chiesa in Valmalenco Nikitina was coming off a strong performance at the Games in Korea where she placed seventh. She is also no stranger to the World Cup circuit with her best showing coming at the season’s opening event in Secret Garden (CHN) where she finished the competition on eight place.
Meanwhile, in the men’s category, the 17-year-old Roth has finally crowned his third showing at the FIS Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships with his first big international title. With a couple of top 20 World Cup finishes as well as his 16th place at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games, the young Swiss aerialist is without a doubt one to watch out for in the years to come.
The 2018 FIS Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships’ moguls and dual moguls competition at are scheduled to take place in Duved (SWE), April 14-15, while the haflpipe, slopestyle and big air event will be ready to go down in Southern Hemisphere at Cardrona Alpine Resort snowpark from August 25 until September 5.
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