Season preview: 2017/18 aerials World Cup
Aug 31, 2018·Freestyle
The start of the 2017/18 FIS Freestyle Skiing aerials World Cup season is approaching quickly, with the first two competitions of the season set to take flight on December 16 and 17, 2017, at the future Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Secret Garden, China.
Including Secret Garden, there will be just four venues and six total competitions on this season’s aerials World Cup tour, with the World Cup ending early in late January ahead of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Korea.
Following the pair of competitions (as well as an aerials team event) in Secret Garden and the holiday break the tour moves to Moscow (RUS) for the first FIS Freestyle World Cup competition of 2018, then to the annual freestyle extravaganza at Utah’s Deer Valley (USA), before finally wrapping up just before the Olympic break with a pair of competitions under the lights at historic Lake Placid (USA).
2016/17 AERIALS WORLD CUP TOP ATHLETES
Ladies:
Xu Mengtao (CHN) - 480pts
Danielle Scott (AUS) - 447pts
Lydia Lassila (AUS) - 354
Men:
Qi Guangpu (CHN) - 440pts
Mac Bohonnon (USA) - 328pts
Anton Kushnir (BLR) - 308pts
SIERRA NEVADA 2017 FIS FREESTYLE SKI AND SNOWBOARD WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Ladies:
Gold - Ashley Caldwell (USA)
Silver - Danielle Scott (AUS)
Bronze - Xu Mengtao (CHN)
Men:
Gold - Jonathon Lillis (USA)
Silver - Qi Guangpu (CHN)
Bronze - David Morris (AUS)
It was a return to form for the Chinese contingent in 2016/17, with Xu Mengtao and Qi Guangpu lighting up the aerials World Cup from start to finish, with both athletes scoring podium results in every competition entered on the season.
Last season’s crystal globe was Xu’s third of her career but her first since 2012/13, and it came on the heels of a 2015/16 season in which she missed all but the first event due to a knee injury. Xu showed few ill effects of that injury in 2016/17, winning the first competition of the season on home soil in Beida Lake and taking her other victory of the season as part of a Chinese podium sweep at the Olympic test event competition in Korea’s Phoenix Park in February.
While the general lack of triple-flipping jumps throughout Xu’s season may raise concern regarding the true lingering effects of the 2015/16 injury, it is also entirely possible that her repertoire throughout last year was part of a programme designed to have her peaking again in time for PyeongChang 2018 in February, where the Chinese would love to see a repeat of their performance at last season’s test event.
Behind Xu on the 2016/17 aerials World Cup leaderboard were a pair of “Flying Kangaroos,” as the Australian team had a fantastic season lead by the always-consistent Danielle Scott and an incredible comeback by two-time Olympic medallist Lydia Lassila after three seasons away from competition.
With four podiums on the season, 2016/17 was the best of Scott’s career, and were it not for a crash in the superfinal of the season-ender in Moscow the 27-year-old would almost certainly have taken the first aerials crystal globe for Australia since Lassila did it in 2009. Though that was not to be, Scott’s second overall performance and her silver medal at the Sierra Nevada 2017 FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championships still made for a resoundingly successful season.
Icing on the cake of that season for the Aussies came from the performance of Lassila who, despite not competing since her bronze-medal winning performance at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, almost immediately upon return to competition showed the type of form that also won her gold at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. With three victories in five competitions in 2016/17, Lassila is very much in the running to become just the fourth Freestyle athlete of all time with three Olympic medals to their credit.
However, what was perhaps the most important single moment of the 2016/17 came in the final jump of the final competition when, at the Sierra Nevada 2017 superfinal, the USA’s Ashley Caldwell completed a mission that Lassila had first attempted at Sochi 2014, becoming the first female aerials athlete to land a quad-twisting triple flip in competition.
Caldwell’s final jump in Sierra Nevada gave her the gold medal and the title of world champion, and will certainly go down as one of the greatest moments in FIS Freestyle history. With the most difficult jump ever completed by a female competitor in her arsenal, Caldwell has put herself in a different echelon heading into 2017/18.
Qi once again leads the men ahead of 2017/18
On the men’s side, Qi’s season showed once again why he is the top competitor on the aerials World Cup, claiming two victories and three runner-up results in five competitions to move into 10th place on the all-time aerials World Cup rankings with 26 career podiums. Though his 2016/17 globe was only the second of his career, Qi has finished in the aerials top five overall in all but one of the last eight seasons, and will no doubt continue to be a force through 2017/18.
Just behind Qi was Mac Bohonnon (USA), who returned to the aerials elite after slumping somewhat to 10th overall in 2015/16 after winning the aerials crystal globe the season before that. With podiums on home soil at Lake Placid and at the Olympic test event in PyeongChang and top-10 results in six out of seven competitions, 22-year-old Bohonnon seems to have found his groove once again.
Behind Bohonnon was the men’s surprise story of the year to match the comeback narrative of Lydia Lassila on the ladies side, as Anton Kushnir (BLR) returned to competition after a semi-retirement following Sochi 2014 to lock in some unexpectedly brilliant performances in a limited number of competitions entered.
As the gold medal-winner at Sochi, no one would doubt that Kushnir had within himself the capabilities to reestablish himself as strong competitor on the aerials World Cup tour. However, few would have predicted just how strong he would be immediately upon returning after three years away, as the then 32-year-old claimed an incredible victory in his very first competition back at Lake Placid in January.
Kushnir would end up shutting his season down early, but not before scoring his third victory in just four competitions entered. And a special victory it was, as Kushnir topped the field at Korea’s Phoenix Park in the aerials Olympic test event, perhaps setting the stage to become the first aerials athlete in Freestyle history to repeat as Olympic champion.
And, finally, we turn back to the Sierra Nevada 2017 world championships, where a remarkable night for the US aerials squad was capped off with an unprecedented gold medal-winning performance by Jonathon Lillis.
A steadily-improving member of the US squad with one World Cup podium to his name, Lillis had the performance of his life at the season’s final major competition, topping the likes of Qi, Sochi 2014 silver medallist David Morris (AUS), Sochi bronze medallist Jia Zongyang, and all others with a perfect full, full, double-full, giving the US aerials team its first world championship aerials gold medal sweep in 22 years.
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