Utah 2019: Aerials preview

Feb 05, 2019·Freestyle

The Utah 2019 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships action will finally move to Deer Valley this week, where the aerials athletes will come to play on Wednesday night in the individual competition, before taking to Deer Valley’s White Owl run once again on Thursday for the historic first-ever aerials mixed team world championships.

One of the most iconic venues in freestyle skiing, the White Owl site in Deer Valley will host the FIS World Championships event for the third time in its history, with previous competition taking place in 2003 and 2011. The venue also has a long history of hosting World Cup competitions with the first event dating back to 2000.

With only one World Cup competition thus far into the 2018/2019 aerials season it’s tough to tell who might be the favourites ahead of Wednesday’s competition, and it might just be just anyone’s game once the aerials finals go down under the lights in Deer Valley.

Leading the ladies’ rankings after the season’s opener in Lake Placid is the 2017/18 aerials World Cup winner Xu Mengtao (CHN) who will be looking to return to the top of the world championships podium. Xu was crowned the aerials World Champion in 2013 in Voss, but finished with the bronze medal in last two editions in 2015 and 2017. She also claimed the silver medal in Deer Valley back in 2011, it’s fair to expect a solid performance from the veteran Chinese athlete.

However, the reigning world champion from Sierra Nevada 2017 Ashley Caldwell (USA) will be highly motivated to defend her title while competing on home soil. Caldwell didn’t quite have a good start to season in Lake Placid, but she’s one of a very few athletes on the ladies side who can perform a triple flip jump, and she proved in 2017 in Spain that she knows how to put one down under pressure.

Add to the mix the up-and-comers from China Shao Qi and Xu Nuo, number two and three on the World Cup tour this season, as well as USA’s own Madison Vermette and Winter Vinecki, as both athletes made it to the big final in Lake Placid and will certainly try to repeat that on the big stage in Deer Valley.

Over on the men’s side Maxim Burov (RUS) took the win in the season’s opener two weeks ago, and while he only has three World Cup victories in her career’s record, he will now be aiming to add the world championships medal to that list.

Also keep an eye on Jonathon Lillis, the reigning world champion from Sierra Nevada 2017, who will be dropping in for the host USA team, as well as the 2014 Olympic champion Anton Kushnir (BLR) and the 2018 Olympic champion Oleksandr Abramenko (UKR).

Going further down the starting lists, let’s not forget about Wang Xindi (CHN), who started the season with a second place finish in Lake Placid, the bronze medallist from PyeongChang 2018 OWG Ilia Burov, or the bronze medallist from Kreischberg 2018 Maxim Burov, just to name a few.

Aerials Mixed Team event set to debut at Utah 2019.

Following the International Olympic Committee’s decision from the summer 2018 to add aerials mixed team to the Olympic programme for Beijing 2022, the event was confirmed quickly as a new addition to the world championships programme, and Utah 2019 will be the stage for the highly anticipated championship-level debut of the new event.

The mixed team format made its World Cup debut with a spectacular stadium competition in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium early in the 2014/15 season. It was a ‘mixed’ event from the outset, with teams of three athletes featuring at least one men’s and at least one ladies’ competitor squaring off against each other to earn the highest cumulative score.

The creation of a team format in what has for its nearly 40-year history been a highly individual sport immediately brought new life to the aerials World Cup, and the decision from the outset to feature teams of mixed gender was a forward-thinking one. Now the exciting format will be on display for the first time on such a big scale and with all world’s best athletes on hand, and we can’t wait to see which team will head home with the historic first gold World Championships medals.

Competition Programme

Tuesday, February 5

12:00 MST - Ladies’ Qualification

15:45 MST - Men’s Qualification - Heat 1 & Heat 2

Wednesday, February 6

19:00 MST - Ladies’ and Men’s Aerials Finals

Thursday, February 7

19:00 MST - Aerials Mixed Team Event

Watch live:

ORF Sport + (Austria), CT Sport (Czech Republic), live-stream on www.areena.yle.fi (Finland), Silk Universal & Silk Sport HD1 (Georgia), BBC Red Button & online (Great Britain), Ziggo Sport Extra (Netherlands), Polsat Sport Extra (Poland), Match TV (Russia), Web RTS (Switzerland), Olympic Channel (USA).

Live-streaming will be also available on FIS Freestyle Youtube Channel (geo-blocked in countries with exclusive media rights agreement).

2019 World Cup Leaders

Ladies: Xu Mengtao (CHN)

Men: Maxim Burov (RUS)

2018 Olympic Champions

Ladies: Hanna Huskova (BLR)

Men: Oleksandr Abramenko (UKR)

2017 World Champions

Ladies: Ashley Caldwell (USA)

Men: Jonathon Lillis (USA)

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