The Best of the Rest: Revisiting some under-appreciated standouts

Just to make it onto the World Cup tour is a significant achievement for an athlete, and any skier you ask who's risen to the top tier of the ski world will be able to tell you when their first World Cup start was, their favourite place to compete, their best career result and - for those lucky and talented enough to achieve such things - when and where their most significant podium result occurred.

The FIS Freestyle and Freeski World Cup represents the best in freestyle skiing action, week in and week out through the winter season, with the most challenging courses and the toughest competition, and to make it onto a World Cup podium - whether it's your first or your 50th - is a huge achievement every time.

Of course, the athlete who lands at the top of the podium on any given week is the one who inevitably ends up earning the most attention, the most points, and the most accolades. While winning isn't everything when it comes to World Cup competition, it does give us a handy way of defining who's the best on any given day, and you would be hard-pressed to track down an athlete who doesn't have "WIN" at the top of their competition goals list.

However, all this emphasis on winning means that we've got a whole library of exceptional second and third-place podium performances that maybe didn't receive the attention that they deserved in all the hustle and bustle of the World Cup season. With that in mind, we're going to take some time over the coming weeks to revisit a collection of our favourite standout performances that may have slipped through the cracks during the last couple of World Cup seasons, and give those performances their due here and on social media.

This article will be updated with each "new" throwback we focus on, so check back regularly and enjoy some of the "best of the rest" performances from the FIS Freestyle and Freeski World Cup!

Jaelin Kauf and Tess Johnson all-American third-place showdown at Deer Valley

Kicking things off with the first of our new throwback series, let us present you with an extremely exciting dual moguls small-final match-up between host nation rippers Jaelin Kauf and Tess Johnson at the 2020 FIS Dual Moguls World Cup event in Deer Valley.

Dropping in on the iconic Champion Run during the World Cup dual moguls night event in Deer Valley has long be regarded as one of the most exciting and nerve-wracking experiences in moguls skiing. When you then add in the fact that we’re talking here about two good friends and teammates going head-to-head in a tight battle for a third place and in front of a massive and very enthusiastic home crowd, it’s a no brainer to include this highlight run on our list.

To make things a bit more spicy, this wasn’t the first time that Kauf and Johnson met in a Deer Valley duals matchup.

Their first encounter took place at Nor-Am Cup in 2015 with Johnson emerging victorious in a round of sixteen.  The duo met again at the 2017 World Cup event, but it was Kauf who advance into the quarter finals that time. Then, in 2018/19, on the biggest stage of the season at the Utah 2019 World Championships, the pair faced each other in semi finals, with Kauf winning that matchup and going on to earn the silver medal, while Johnson would come out on top in her small finals heat to take the bronze in a big night for the US squad.

Then again this season Kauf and Johnson would drop in on the world's gnarliest moguls course, with the pair charging neck and neck down Deer Valley’s Champion Run in another epic clash for a third place finish… Enjoy!

Colby Stevenson (USA) takes first home-soil World Cup podium at Mammoth Mountain

It was just over four years ago that a then 18-year-old Colby Stevenson was lying in a hospital in Idaho with severe head, back, and rib injuries after a massive car crash, lucky to be alive and wondering if he would ever be able to ski again.

After an intense rehab period through the summer of 2016 and into the winter of 2017, Stevenson proved that not only would he ski again, he would do so once again as one of the best in the world by taking the win at his first competition back from injury at the Seiser Alm slopestyle World Cup that season.

However, it was in this past season that Stevenson fully realized his potential, with one of the most start-to-finish seasons we've seen in quite some time from a slopestyle/big air skier. Recording X Games victories in both slopestyle and knuckle huck competitions, as well as big air "Best Trick" honours at the Dew Tour, podiums in three-out-of-three slopestyle World Cup competitions he entered in 2019/20, and a second-overall finish on the World Cup slopestyle standings, Stevenson was nothing short of magic throughout the winter.

One of those World Cup podiums came at the Mammoth Mountain slopestyle World Cup back in January, where his incomparable rail game uber-smooth jump line landed him in second place behind only Andri Ragettli (SUI) to give Stevenson his first ever home soil World Cup podium and a huge boost on his way to that career-best finish on the 2019/20 slopestyle final rankings.

Lewis Irving returns on tour with two top-3 finishes in Minsk and Krasnoyarsk

Sustaining a severe hip injury at the end the 2017/18 season, Canada’s Lewis Irving was sidelined from competition for almost a year and a half before he was finally able to show his moves again at water ramp competitions in Switzerland and Canada in the middle of last summer. Fast-forward a few months to December and the start of the 2019/20 season, Irving made his World Cup return, kicking off the campaign with a solid 16th place finish. And then, three starts later, Irving made it back into top-10 at the city night event in Moscow in February.

However, it was in the second part of the season that Irving really shifted into high gear. Just one week after the competition in Moscow (RUS), the FIS Freestyle Ski Aerials World Cup tour was back in action in Minsk (BLR). There, competing against a stacked field of athletes in some challenging weather conditions, Irving stepped his game up a notch in the final round of the competition, stomping an impressive back double Full-Full-Full. He earned a scored of 124.43 points, which at the end of the day was enough to put him into second place, only 0.46 points behind the winner Justin Schoenefeld (USA). Also worth mentioning is the fact that it was just the second top-3 finish for 24-year-old Irving, with his first World Cup podium coming back in 2017 in Secret Garden.

Irving kept the momentum going into two final competitions of the season and first he earned another solid result in Oi Qaragai (KAZ), making it all the way to the second round of the finals and finishing in sixth place. Then, at the final event of the season in Krasnoyarsk (RUS), Irving came in hot once again and wrapped up 2019/20 in style, clinching his second top-3 of the season with a textbook double Full-Full-Full. On top of this, Irving finished the 2019/20 World Cup season in fifth place overall, establishing himself as a consistent contender to push the world’s best and giving the Freestyle Canada squad plenty of reasons to be excited about the upcoming World Cup campaign and the 2021 World Championships in China.

Heidi Zacher (GER) powers from fourth to first in Idre Fjall (SWE)

For our first Audi FIS Ski Cross World Cup blast from the past in this series we look back to the 2018/19 season and the always-entertaining and often surprising venue in Idre Fjall (SWE), where the twisting and turning top section followed by extended final straight that is both speedy and technical often results in some of the most exciting lead changes seen anywhere in ski cross.

For a standout example of that, look no further than than the women's big final from two seasons ago, where German veteran Heidi Zacher was able to take her first victory in just over a year with a canny combination of patience and explosiveness, proving that in ski cross it ain't over until it's over.

First, check out the heat, where Zacher lined up against two of the very best of all time in  Marielle Thompson (CAN) and Fanny Smith (SUI) - who hold 47 World Cup victories between them - as well as Sweden's own Lisa Andersson...

It's the Swede Andersson who moves into the lead out of the gate, followed by Smith and Thompson with Zacher bringing up the rear. However, the experienced German soon calmly maneuvers herself into third place through the turns at the top of the course, and then slides into second just before the start of the straightaway and the massive jumps that kick that section off - setting herself up for a triumphant finish.

At the start of the straight Zacher falls into Smith's draft over the first jump, building up speed before slingshotting past the Swiss skier and into the lead over the second big jump. From there, Zacher then nails the tricky rhythms of each of the high-speed roller sections and keeps it low to sweep across the line for the win.

Also worth noting here is the performance of the Canadian Thompson, who also found herself in fourth place at one point in the big final, after Zacher made her first move in the upper section. However, Thompson was able to tuck into Zacher's draft through the final straight, working herself all the way up to a neck-and-neck drag race to the finish line with Smith that resulted in a photo finish for second, with Thompson winning that battle by a fingertip.

And Andersson, the leader out of the start of the big final? She's forced to settle for fourth place on the day, showing once again that the only sure thing in ski cross is that anything can happen...

Junko Hoshino jumps back onto the World Cup podium for the first time in five years

Intermittent rain throughout the day couldn’t put a damper on an excellent day of mogul skiing at last season’s edition of the Tazawako World Cup, and the host Japanese team looked like they were heading for a banner day after putting three athletes through to the six-skier women’s superfinal in Saturday’s single moguls competition.

However, after both Rino Yamagimoto and Anri Kawamura had major mistakes in their runs, it was down to Junko Hoshino to make sure the day didn’t end with the Japanese squad left empty-handed.

Luckily, the 30-year-old veteran was able to rise to the occasion, putting down a smooth and confident run to earn a score of 79.75 and second place on the day. The podium was her first in almost exactly five years, with her last top-3 result also coming in the form of a second place finish in Tazawako, back in 2015.

The impressive return to form from the Japanese skier in a high-pressure home field event earns Junko Hoshino a well-deserved spot on our “Best of the Rest” list.