Thenault and Werner win in Almaty, Peel and Burov clinch the World Cup titles
Mar 13, 2021·Freestyle
Fresh off of the 2021 FIS Freestyle Ski World Championships earlier this week, Saturday saw another thrilling competition to go down on the brand new venue in Almaty’s Shymbulak Ski Resort (KAZ), which wrapped up what was another successful FIS Freestyle Ski Aerials World Cup campaign. Canada’s Marion Thenault and Switzerland’s Pirmin Werner took their maiden victories on tour in respective women’s and men’s event, with Australia’s Laura Peel and Russia’s Maxim Burov clinching the season’s top World Cup honours by taking home the aerials crystal globes.
It was an interesting season for the aerials World Cup tour, despite difficulties caused mainly by Covid-19 travel restrictions, which resulted in cancelations of some of the World Cup events in North America and Asia. Nevertheless, a dedicated group of experienced organisers brought to life as many as seven competitions on three different continents, with the season’s final event wrapping up 2020/21 on a high in Kazakhstan.
In the women’s competition it was Marion Thenault, who came with a sort of surprise victory on Saturday, taking her very first top spot on the World Cup podium. The 20-year-old rookie was left speechless, after the main favourite for victory Laura Peel failed to land her jump in the big final, leaving Thenault to reach for the best result of her young career.
In the big final Thenault perfectly landed her double Full-Full, and while it wasn’t the most difficult jump in the women’s competition, Thenault's execution boosted her score up to 89.88 points. And with afore-mentioned Peel, as well as her teammate Danielle Scott and the host nation’s underdog Zhanbota Aldabergenova, all failing to land their triple flips cleanly, it was Thenault who finished on top of the podium at the end of the day.
Second place on the day went to Russia’s Liubov Nikitina, who received 86.36 points for her Full-double Full, while scoring her second top-3 finish in Almaty this week after finishing with a silver medal at the World Championships this past Wednesday.
The local fans’ favourite Zhanbota Aldabergenova rounded out the women’s podium in third place with 84.00 points, while coming with a little backslap on her Lay-Full-Full. It was career’s third top-3 finish at World Cup for Aldabergenova, with her last podium also coming in front of the home crowd last year’s in Almaty’s Qi Qaragai.
In the final aerials World Cup ranking it was Laura Peel, who despite loosing one of her skis on a landing in the big final, managed to defend her last year’s title, leading the field with 450 points after seven events. In 2020/21 Peel recorded two victories as well as two runner-up positions and kept the World Cup leader’s yellow bib from start to finish.
USA’s Winter Vinecki finished the season in second place overall with 343 points, while the Saturday’s winner Marion Thenault completed the women’s podium in third with 312 points.
Over on the men’s side it was Pirmin Werner, who led the 1-2 punch by the Swiss aerials team alongside his teammate and friend Nicolas Gygax, while claiming victory in a big way.
Dropping in as the first rider of the big final, Werner received 121.72 points for an impressive double Full-Full-Full, and while none of his five remaining rivals managed to beat Werner’s score, the 2019/20 rookie of the year finally snagged his maiden World Cup win.
Also Werner’s teammate Nicolas Gygax wrapped up the day on a high with his career’s first top-3 finish for his second place on the day after he scored 119.46 points also for a double Full-Full-Full.
Canada’s Lewis Irwing took third on the day, for his third top-3 of the season, while putting down a Full-double Full-Full for a final score of 113.28 points.
In the men’s overall standing it was Maxim Burov, who clinched the title already in Raubichi (BLR) following his winning streak of five consecutive victories. On Saturday Burov failed to make the cut into the big final, consequently not landing on top of the podium in first competition of all he entered this season. Still with five World Cup victories, to add to his two World Championships gold medals, Burov basically dominated the 2020/21 season and with 526 points he claimed his career’s second aerials World Cup crystal globe.
Switzerland’s duo of Noe Roth and Saturday’s winner Pirmin Werner finished the season in the respective second and third place with 320 and 305 points.
As the 2020/21 wrapped up in Almaty, Canada’s Marion Thenault and Ukraine’s Dmytro Kotovskyi were awarded the Rookie of the Year awards, while USA topped the Nations Cups standing.
With the aerials season now officially in the books, the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup tour is gearing up for the final dual moguls competitions of the 2020/21 campaign, which take to the bumpy course of Almaty on Sunday.
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