Nick and Burov take individual wins, Russia on top in team event in Yaroslavl
Jan 17, 2021·Freestyle
The second competition day at the aerials World Cup staged at Yaroslavl took place on Sunday, concluding an action-packed weekend at the first FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup event of 2021. Russia with Anastasiia Prytkova, Pavel Krotov and Maxim Burov in squad took victory in the mixed team event, while USA’s Megan Nick and afore-mentioned Burov 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 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 chilly day in Yaroslavl.
The individual competition kicked off early at 14:00 local time, beginning a long but exciting day of the double-header World Cup event with 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 women’s competition Megan Nick stomped a high-scoring full double full to claim her career’s first World Cup victory. After somehow a disappointing 13th place in Saturday’s event, the 24-year-old American was able to step things up on Sunday with a trick she performed for the first time in competition. Nick received a score 89.88 points for her jump to give the U.S. Team their first victory in women’s aerials World Cup since Kiley Mckinnon’s reached the top spot in Moscow back in 2018.
“My goal this season was to bring the double-out to snow and compete it,” said Nick. “Vlad and I have been working on getting higher quality DD (degree of difficulty) jumps and that’s what I have been working on since the beginning of the season and summer. It was nice to put down that jump today.”
Second place on the day went to 2014 Olympic gold medallists Alla Tsuper, who missed the top spot by just 0.06 points as she received a score of 89.82 for her lay-full-full. And while Tsuper couldn’t quite put down her trick clean, it was still a highly impressive performance by the 41-year-old veteran, who came back on the World Cup podium for the first time in almost 10 years.
Megan Nick’s teammate from the U.S. Aerials Team Kaila Kuhn rounded out the women’s podium in third place. The 17-year-old performed a textbook full-full, for which she received 87.25 points, and earned a well-deserved career’s first top-3 finish.
In the women’s World Cup standing Australia’s Laura Peel maintained her lead on top of the field despite crashing on her full-full-full attempt. After three competitions so far in the campaign Peel has 210 points, with the U.S. duo of Kaila Kuhn and Ashley Caldwell following behind in second and third with 146 and 145 points, respectively.
Over in the men’s competition Maxim Burov reached for his second individual victory this weekend, while putting down a massive double full-full-full for a score of 125.34 points. With another top spot in Russia, Burov extends his winning streak to three consecutive victories and remains unbeaten so far in 2020/21.
Similarly to what we saw on Saturday, the Russian Aerials Team put not one, but two athletes on the podium. This time however it was Stanislav Nikitin, who completed a 1-2 punch by the host squad by taking second place right in his backyard in Yaroslavl. Nikitin also performed a double full-full-full for which he received 123.98 points.
Canada’s Lewis Irving finished the day in third place with 120.36 points for his full double full-full.
In the men’s aerials World Cup standing Maxim Burov leads the way with a perfect score of 300 points. Pavel Krotov (RUS) sits behind in second place with 192 points, while Justin Schoenfeld is rounding out top-3 with 113 points.
Straight after an exciting individual competition, seven teams each consisting of three athletes jousted together in the season’s only aerials team event. And after the first round of jumps the field was narrowed down to only four teams, with 12 jumps remaining to decide the final ranking on the day.
In the end it was Team Russia 1 finishing on top of the podium as Anastasiia Prytkova, Pavel Krotov and Maxim Burov managed to outscore strong competition from Switzerland, USA and another host nation’s squad Russia 2. Following some exceptional showings from Krotov and Burov in the final phase of the event Russia 1 came with a combined score of 339.01 points and wrapped up a highly successful weekend in Yaroslavl with yet another impressive victory for the Russian Aerials Team.
Swiss Team consisting of Carol Bouvard, Pirmin Werner and Noe Roth finished the competition in second place with 325.45 points, while U.S. Team with Ashley Caldwell, Eric Loughran and Justin Schoenefeld came in third with 322.19.
The FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup tour will now travel to Moscow for another night-time aerials showdown at the iconic scaffold jump located at the famous Sparrow Hills next Saturday, January 23.
QUICK LINKS:
Yaroslavl World Cup data page (startlists, live timing, results)
