Beijing 2022 OWG preview: Aerials
Feb 09, 2022·Freestyle
With moguls and big air in the books, aerials competition are next on the menu for Freestyle Skiing at the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games. And there is plenty of reason to get excited for the upcoming couple of days with as many as three aerials events scheduled to go down at the Genting Snow Park.
Things will kick off on Thursday, February 10 as the aerials mixed team event Olympic debut is expected to go down in a big way, before we will see women’s individual competition take place on Sunday and Monday (qualifications and finals), February 13-14, with men following up on Tuesday and Wednesday, February 15-16.
PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games aerials results
Women:
Gold - Hanna Huskova (BLR), Silver - Zhang Xin (CHN), Bronze - Kong Fanyu (CHN)
Men:
Gold - Oleksandr Abramenko (UKR), Silver - Jia Zongyang (CHN), Bronze - Ilia Burov (ROC)
WHO TO WATCH - WOMEN
Starting on the women’s side of things it’s hard not to begin with Australia’s Laura Peel, who is coming off another exceptional 2020/21 season where she not only managed to defend her World Cup title by earning her second straight crystal globe, but also claimed World Championships gold in Shymbulak - her second career World Championships title.
However, Peel is facing strong competition this season, with many athletes eager to steal her thunder, including her Australian compatriot Danielle Scott. Like Peel, Scott has triple flips in her trick repertoire, and definitely should be in the mix to perform well at the Games.
The Australian World Cup champion Peel maybe be sitting in surprising third place on the aerials standings this season, but she is experienced veteran, who knows how to perform on a big stage.
Despite struggling with landings so far in the World Cup campaign, Peel’s resilience and patience paid off big time in Deer Valley, after the 32-year-old stomped a squeaky clean Full-Full-Full, for which she received a massive score of 118.05 points and indisputable top spot on the day.
With surprisingly only one top-3 finish before the event on “White Owl” aerials venue, the Aussie skier finally managed to grab the win, and she did it in extraordinary fashion with one of the highest score we’ve seen in women’s competition over the last couple of years.
The Australian athlete outscored the rest of the field by over 35 points, and to put things a little bit into perspective Peel’s score would have also put her on the podium in the men’s event that day.
Then let’s not forget about the US squad, led by veteran Ashley Caldwell, who will also have a strong support from their younger teammates Winter Vinecki, Megan Nick and Kaila Kuhn.
Just couple of day ahead of the Games in China Caldwell landed a full, double full, full - also known as “The Daddy”, and while it’s probably the most technical trick over on the women’s side, it could easily put her on top of the podium when performed well in super final.
Going further down the entries we have a Chinese veteran duo of Xu Mengtao and Kong Fanyu, who are entering the Games leading the World Cup ranking in the respective first and second place.
It is exciting to see one of the sport’s greatest athletes return to competition, as we can look forward Xu Mengtao back in the mix after the Chinese team decided not to participate at World Cup in the 2020/21 season due to the pandemic.
With the win in Ruka earlier this season Xu wrote a piece of freestyle skiing history, as she moved clear of Aussie legend Jacqui Copper in the all-time ranking for most World Cup victories.
Xu has podiums in 49 of 71 career World Cup starts, including 27 victories, as well as a medal from every World Championships competition she has ever competed in, making her not only one of the most explosive athletes in all of aerials, but arguably the most consistent as well. Getting between Xu and the gold medal is a tall task indeed for the rest of the field.
Going further down the starting list also keep an eye on Anastasiya Novosad (UKR), as the 28-year-old is experiencing sort of a breakout season, currently sitting in fifth place also with one victory and a couple of top-10 results so far in the campaign.
Then also to watch out for are the likes of Liubov Nikitina (ROC), Zhanbota Aldabergenova (KAZ), the defending Olympic champion from PyeongChang - Hanna Huskova (BLR), or the 2021 Rookie of the Year Megan Thenault (CAN), all of whom are well capable of jumping on top of the podium on a good day.
WHO TO WATCH - MEN
Moving on to the men’s side of competition it’s hard not to begin with Maxim Burov (ROC), who is leading the way in World Cup with four victories in only four events he competed before sitting out the last stretch of competitions ahead of the Games.
Still, in last nine individual World Cup events dating back to last year’s Ruka Freestyle Ski Opening, Burov claimed as many as eight victories.
In four competitions in Ruka back in December Burov showed a dominant performance leading the field from start to finish, while landing one of the highest scoring jumps in recent history. In Ruka’s third individual competition Burov first earned 129.65 points in qualifications, then 130.98 points in the first round of finals, just to put an exclamation point in the super final, where he landed a superb Full-Full double Full for which he received 133.48 points and thus an indisputable spot on top of the podium.
Burov has been showing a tremendous consistency and if he can only deliver his superb form from December, it will be difficult to find an athlete to beat him in a battle for the Olympic gold medal.
Beside Burov, the ROC team will be looking for strong performances from their other athletes - Stanislav Nikitin and Ilia Burov, with Ilia hoping to share the podium with his brother Maxim.
Going further down the list also watch out for Justin Schoenfeld (USA), Lewis Irving (CAN), Sherwood Khashyrbayev (KAZ), Dmitry Mazurkevich (BLR), defending 2018 Olympic champion Oleksandr Abramenko (UKR) as well as Dmytro Kotovskyi (UKR), who will be looking to stomp his Full-Triple Full-Full aka “The Hurricane” - one of the most difficult jumps in aerial skiing that can easily put him on top of the podium once landed properly.
Then let’s move over to Swiss squad with Noe Roth, Pirmin Werner and Nicolas Gygax all developing into world class aerials athletes over the past few seasons while scoring some impressive results on the way, including World Cup crystal globes and World Championships medals.
Obviously, also on the men’s side we should see some fire coming from the Chinese team with Sun Jiaxu, Jia Zongyang, Qi Guangpu and Wang Xindi to repeat some of their World Cup performances from this season on home-soil Olympic event. We won’t be surprised to see the host team try to sweep the men’s podium just as they did right at the final World Cup event in Deer Valley back in January.
AERIALS MIXED TEAM EVENT
The team event will be the big highlight of the Beijing 2022 OWG with as many as 8 nations ready to make some noise on Thursday night.
The mixed team format made its World Cup debut with a spectacular stadium competition in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium early in the 2014/15 season. It was a ‘mixed’ event from the outset, with teams of three athletes featuring at least one men’s and at least one women’s competitor squaring off against each other to earn the highest cumulative score.
The creation of a team format in what has for its nearly 40-year history been a highly individual sport immediately brought new life to the aerials competition, and the decision from the outset to feature teams of mixed gender was a forward-thinking one. Now the exciting format will be on display for the first time on such a big scale and with all world’s best athletes on hand, we can’t wait to see which team will head home with the historic first gold Olympic medals.
We only saw two team events in 2021/22, with China winning on both occasions. But those were highly contested events with the Russian Olympic Committee team, Ukraine, USA and Belarus also putting up a great show in super finals. Again this week we’re expecting some high airs and big spins to heat up the atmosphere here at the Genting Snow Park.
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