China dominates the final World Cup of the aerials season
Mar 03, 2019·Freestyle
The second day of competition on the aerials World Cup was staged at Shimao Lotus Mountain on Sunday, concluding an action-packed weekend and capping off the 2018/2019 FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup season. China swept the podium at home in team competition, while Xu Mengtao (CHN) and Sun Jiaxu (CHN) came on top in the one-round format individual event.
With Sunday’s team event acting as the lone aerials team competition of the season, where the individual, qualification phase of the competition decided the results for World Cup points, once again the world’s top athletes showed up ready to strut their stuff and get the crowd warmed up in what was another sunny and spring day in Jilin province.
The qualifications seeding round kicked off early in the morning, beginning a long but exciting day of the double-header competition and everyone’s attention turned to see how the athletes would strive not just to improve their team’s standing, but also to battle for their place on the World Cup leaderboard.
In the ladies’ event Xu Mengtao got redemption after somehow disappointing performance on Saturday when she finished just behind the podium in fourth. On Sunday, however, Xu came in hot, stomping her back double full full for a score of 101.16 points and dominating the competition for her third World Cup victory of the season.
Ashley Caldwell (USA) finished the event just behind Xu in second with a score of 93.41 points while also performing a back double full full. Third place on the day went to Xu Sicun (CHN), who received 90.40 points for her back full full.
With the win on Sunday and another 100 points to her record, the 28-year-old veteran reached for her third straight victory in the overall classification with 410 points and was awarded with the FIS Freestyle Ski aerials World Cup crystal globe. It’s also the fifth time for Xu to dominate the aerials World Cup tour with two other other victories coming in 2012 and 2013.
Xu Sicun wrapped up the 2018/19 season in the second place in the overall standing with 299 points, after scoring three consecutive top-3 finishes. Saturday’s winner Laura Peel (AUS) rounded out the ladies’ aerials World Cup podium in third with 256 points.
Moving over to the men’s event it was Sun Jiaxu (CHN) who went for back-to-back victories on home soil after he landed his back full double full full and received a score of 123.90. This time Sun edged out Noe Roth (SUI) for the first place with a slightest of margin, as the Swiss skier also stomped the same trick as Sun, for which he received 123.01 points.
Finishing in third was the veteran Anton Kushnir (BLR), who performed the most difficult trick on the day with his back double full full full. However he couldn’t quite stomp his trick as clean as the duo of Sun and Roth and he earned a score of 121.72 point, what was just enough to put him in the third place at the end of the day.
In the overall standings it was the other Chinese athlete Wand Xindi, who managed to keep his advantage over Sun Jiaxu and with 316 points after five competitions in 2018/19, he earned his very first aerials World Cup crystal globe.
This weekend’s double winner Sun Jiaxu finished the season in the second place with 298 points with Anton Kushnir rounding out the men’s podium in third with 249 points.
Straight after an exciting qualification round, 6 teams each consisting of three athletes jousted together in the season’s only aerials team event.
With Xu Mengtao , Sun Jiaxu and Wand Xindi on their squad there was however not much the other teams could do to spoil the Chinese Team 1 party in the event as they lead the podium sweep for China with a combined scored of 299.06 points.
Team China 2 consisting of Xu Sichuan, Yang Longxiao and Wu Shundi finished just behind in second with 290.05 points, while Team China 3 with Jia Liya, Li Boyan and Yang Renlong in squad came in third with 260.08 points.
With the team event wrapping up the 2018/19 season at Shimao Lotus Mountain, the annual awards have been handed out. China’s Shao Qi and Sun Jiaxu were awarded the Rookie of the Year honours, while China would finish tops in the aerials Nations Cup.
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