Peel and Burov take aerials gold in Almaty
Mar 10, 2021·Freestyle
After two exciting day of competition on moguls course it was finally time to move over to the aerials venue on Wednesday, where the individual competition went down in a spectacular way with Laura Peel (AUS) and Maxim Burov (RSF) finishing the day with the FIS Freestyle Ski World Championships gold medals.
It was a long, but extremely thrilling day of action with over 50 world’s best aerial athletes taking it to the sky above the Almaty’s Shymbulak Ski Resort for what was one of the best, if not the best final showdown in 35 years of aerials World Championships history.
With an exciting world champs competition format consisting of an increased number of jumps, it was not only about who can perform the tricks better, but also the strategy played an important role on the day. And as the level of competition was sky-high on Wednesday, we could see athletes changing their jumps numerous times to increase the difficulty level of their tricks and thus boosting their chances of qualifying into the next round.
In the women’s competition it was Laura Peel, who played it out smart, while leaving her most difficult trick for the decisive, final phase of the competition. Peel qualified in third place into superfinal, after putting down remarkably impressive Full-Tuck-Full and Lay-Tuck-Full, meaning it was a game of triples that would decide the winner of the day.
Then in the superfinal, Peel stomped a Full-Full-Full, and while both Ashley Caldwell (USA) and top qualifier Danielle Scott (AUS) couldn’t get above Peel’s score of 106.46, it was the 31-year-old member of “Flying Kangaroos” team who wrapped up the day with her career’s second gold medal.
The silver medal went to 2017 World Champion from Sierra Nevada Ashley Caldwell (USA), who also performed a Full-Full-Full in the superfinal for a score of 101.74 points.
Liubov Nikitina (RSF) rounded out the women’s podium in third place with 94.47 points for her Full-double Full.
It was also a throw-down party over in the men’s event, where the field was so stacked that in the first round of finals only 3 points separated the top qualifier from the ninth athlete in that round, with only the top-6 making the cut into the superfinal.
Once in the superfinal it was Maxim Burov (RSF), who dropping in as the last athlete of the day, stomped his double Full-Full-double Full for a high-score of 135.00 points and his second straight aerials World Championships title.
“It was very hard to defend the title today, so I’m really happy about my results and the gold medal,” said Burov through a translator, “All others guys were pushing hard and the level was just amazing. I’m really pleased to finished the day on top of the podium.”
Second place and the silver medal went to Christopher Lillis, who finished the day just 2 points shy of Burov’s high-score also for a double Full-Full-double Full.
Burov’s teammate Pavel Krotov completed the men’s podium in third place with 127.50 points for the exactly same jump as Burov and Lillis.
The 2021 FIS Freestyle Ski World Championships in Almaty will be heading into its fourth and final day of competition on Thursday with the Aerials Mixed Team event slated to go down at 15:00 local time (10:00 CET).
QUICK LINKS:
Almaty World Championships data page (startlists, live timing, results)
Photos: Aerials
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