Ramanouskaya and Nikitin on top in Moscow
Feb 16, 2019·Freestyle
Following a successful world championships competition in Utah, the FIS Freestyle Ski aerials World Cup went straight back into action this weekend, with Aliaksandra Romanouskaya (BLR) and Stanislav Nikitin (RUS) taking victories in the second World Cup competition of the 2018/19 season in Moscow.
And again the ninth iteration of Moscow’s World Cup event went down in style, as the iconic scaffold jump located at the famous Sparrow Hills delivered another world class competition.
Coming straight off her gold medal performance at Utah 2019 world champs, Ramanouskaya managed to build off her recent success to take her career’s first World Cup victory.
Keeping the similar strategy from last weekend’s competition at Deer Valley, here again in Moscow the Belarusian athlete landed her Lay-Full-Full in the big final to earn the winning score. Ramanouskaya was the only female athlete to perform a triple flip in this round of competition, and when she put that one down cleanly for a score of 105.93, it became clear that she would be headed home with another important victory to her record.
The second place on the day with a score of 97.64 went to Laura Peel (AUS) for her first spot on the podium in 2018/19, while the veteran Xu Mengtao (CHN) rounded out the ladies’ podium in third with a score of 89.88, for her fourth-straight podium.
In the aerials World Cup ranking Xu Mengtao holds the number one spot with 160 points after two competitions so far in the season. With the victory in Moscow Ramanouskaya jumped into the second spot with 116 points, while Xu’s teammate Shao QI now sits in third, also with 116 points.
Switching over the the men’s side it was Stanislav Nikitin (RUS), as the member of the bronze medal squad from the aerials mixed team event at the Utah 2019 world champs stepped it up in front of the home crown, leading the field from qualifications to big finals. In the final phase of the competition, dropping as the last athlete on the day, Nikitin stomped his double Full-Full-Full for a score of 128.96, leaving no doubts who was the best male athlete on Saturday night in Moscow.
Repeating his good performance from the season’s opener in Lake Placid, Wang Xindi (CHN) scored a 123.88 to finish the competition in second place, while emerging Swiss star Noe Roth came in third, earning his very first World Cup top-3 finish just after capturing bronze at the world champs last week in Utah.
In the men’s standing it’s Nikitin who took over the World Cup yellow leader’s bib with 160 points, while Wang sits in second after a tie-breaker, also holding 160 points, with the 2019 World Champion Maxim Burov (RUS) following up in third with 136 points.
Aerials World Cup action continues next week with the third competition of 2018/19 season staged to go down in Minsk (BLR) on Saturday, February 23.
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