Moscow ready to host another city World Cup event
Feb 15, 2020·Freestyle
Straight from an exciting weekend of freestyle action in Deer Valley (USA), the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup has moved to Russia’s capital Moscow, where the fourth aerials World Cup of the season is set to go down under the lights on Saturday, February 15.
Initially scheduled to take place on January 25, the competition has been rescheduled to February 15, leaving the organisers with more than two weeks of additional time to produce the snow and get the venue ready to welcome the world's best aerials athletes. And fortunately for all the freestyle fans, Mother Nature played along this time and now after three days of training in Moscow, everything is ready for another stunning city night show.
It will also be the tenth iteration of Moscow’s World Cup event, and with a stacked field of athletes ready to give their best in Russia, we can expect a thrilling World Cup competition with dazzling views from the iconic scaffold jump located at the famous Sparrow Hills.
Coming into Moscow’s competition on top of the women’s World Cup standing is Aliaksandra Ramanouskaya (BLR) following her last week’s win on big stage in Deer Valley. With one victory and two runner-up positions so far in the campaign, the 2019 World Champion Ramanouskaya will be looking to get on the podium also this weekend in order to stay atop the women’s ranking.
But Ramanouskaya will have a strong competition on Saturday with five-time overall aerials World Cup champion Xu Mengtao back in a starting gate, after the Chinese aerials team skipped the competition in Deer Valley. And Xu has already two wins into her record in 2019/20, with back-to-back victories in Shimao Lotus Mountain (CHN) in December.
Going further down the starting list let’s not forget about Laura Peel (AUS), who sits in third place in the World Cup ranking, as well as the local favourite Liubov Nikitina (RUS).
Xu Mengtao should also have a strong support from her younger teammates Kong Fanyu and Shao Qi, while USA’s athletes will be looking to repeat their strong performance from Deer Valley, where Megan Nick was one of three women from the US squad to make into the super final, while scoring her very first World Cup top-3 of her career.
Over on the men’s side of the event all eyes will be on the host Russian team with the current men’s World Cup leader Maxim Burov leading the way. Maxim is coming off as strong showing at the last week’s event in Deer Valley, where he topped the podium while putting down cleanly what is one of the most difficult jumps in all of aerials - a double full, full, double full.
Also Maxim’s older brother Ilia will be hoping for a good result in front of the home crowd following his top-3 finish in Deer Valley, where he finished in third place just behind Maxim and Noe Roth (SUI).
But, as it was the case in women’s event, also on the men’s side the competition will be very tough, taking into account that the Chinese aerials team brought to Russia their best athletes Qi Guangpu and Jia Zongyang.
The 2011 and 2017 aerials World Cup winner Qi won both events in China back in December, while Jia finished twice in top-3 at those competitions. It’s fair to expect that also in Moscow the Chinese duo will be trying to dominate the competition and regain the World Cup leader yellow bib for their country, with Qi in a runner-up spot, just nine points behind Maxim Burov. Jia sits in fourth place in the aerials World Cup ranking, 69 points behind the current leader.
Besides strong teams from Russia and China, let’s not underestimate young, but very talented Swiss squad led by afore-mentioned Noe Roth and Pirmin Werner, as well as representing Belarus Maxim Gustik and Pavel Dik, all well capable of putting down a winning run on a good day.
All in all, both women’s and men’s competitions shape up to be a top-notch show under the lights on one of the best venues on the entire FIS Freestyle Ski Aerials World Cup tour.
Saturday’s event in Moscow will kick off with women’s qualifications at 13:30 local time, while men’s qualifications will follow up at 16:00. Finals under the lights are slated to go down at 19:00.
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