Le Relais ready for big World Cup come-back
Jan 05, 2022·Freestyle
After an exciting first portion of the 2021/22 season in Ruka (FIN) back in December that saw a total of four individual competitions as well as two aerials mixed team event, the aerials tour has now moved over to North America with the first competition of 2022 slated to go down this week on Wednesday, January 5 in Le Relais (CAN) at the Mackenzie Investments FIS Freestyle Ski Aerials World Cup presented by Toyota.
Located just 15 minutes from Quebec City, Le Relais will see the World Cup return to its tracks for the first time since 1995. Operating since mid 1930s Le Relais has continued to live up to its reputation as one of the top family ski centres in the region. It’s also where the first great Quebec skiers were trained. Over the years that followed, Le Relais maintained its reputation as a major ski resort and it played host to the world’s best skiers while headed successively by such tenacious individuals as Joseph Aubé, Laurier Drouin, Clément Leclerc, or Jean Papillon.
Between 1993 and 1995 Le Relais organised numerous World Cup events in acro, aerials and moguls, that saw some of the greatest Canadians freestyle athletes such as Jean-Luc Brassard and Phillippe Laroche shine in front of the home crowd. Now almost 27 years after the last World Cup competition in Le Relais, the new wave of Canadian aerialists will continue a long tradition of freestyle skiing in Quebec region and certainly will do their best to make the home fans proud in penultimate aerials competition before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
With only two more competitions to go before the Games in China, it is going to be pretty exciting month of January. A stacked field of athletes is not only eager to fight for World Cup points and the leader’s yellow bib, but most of all to clinch the spot on their national Olympic teams, giving us all high hopes that the upcoming competitions in Le Relais and Deer Valley (USA) will be ones to remember for a long time.
In the women’s competition we have a Chinese veteran duo of Xu Mengtao and Kong Fanyu, who are entering the event in Canada leading the World Cup ranking in the respective first and second place. After the opening two weekends of competitions in Ruka, Xu has one victory and two more top-3 finished to her 2021/22 record, with Kong following not far behind with one victory and one second place finish.
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 third place also with one victory and a couple of top-10 results so far in the campaign.
Then also don’t forget about the reining World Cup champion Laura Peel (AUS), as well as her teammate Danielle Scott. Despite somehow a slow start into the season the “Flying Kangaroos” duo is coming straight off of an impressive finish in Ruka, where Scott won the final competition with Peel finishing just behind in second place.
Of course let’s not forget about Shao Qi (CHN) and Zhanbota Aldabergenova (KAZ), who both have already scored spots on the podium in 2021/22 and will be hoping for another good result in Canada.
Finally there is the local hero and 2021 “Rookie of the Year” winner Marion Thenault (CAN), who has a couple of top-5 finishes in this World Cup campaign, and will be certainly looking to step things up a notch in front of the home crowd in Quebec.
Things are pretty interesting over in the men’s competition as the Russian Aerials Team did not travel to North America meaning that Maxim Burov won’t extend his winning streak, while some other top guns like Stanislav Nikitin and Maxim’s brother Illia Burov also won’t compete in Le Relais.
Second in the ranking Noe Roth is sitting 193 points behind Burov, so if he manages to win the competition in Canada and then back it up with another victory in Deer Valley, he would take over the lead in the World Cup ranking.
But to do so, he first has to outscore some tough competition on hand in Quebec, with his teammate and a good friend Pirmin Werner leading the way ahead of stacked Chinese team with Jia Zongyang, Qi Guangpu and Sun Jiaxu in squad.
Then we have Dmytro Kotovskyi (UKR), who will be hoping to make some noise with his Full-triple Full-Full aka the “Hurricane”, as well as his teammate and the 2018 Olympic Champion Oleksandr Abramenko, also able to get on top of the podium on a good day.
After some impressive results back in December, Sherzod Khashyrbayew (KAZ) will be doing his best to step things up in Le Relais and finally get on the World Cup podium, while Eric Loughran will try to keep the hopes high for the US squad.
With Lewis Irwing still recovering from his injury that he sustained at the beginning of the season, the Freestyle Canada Team will be hoping for good performances from their local up-and-comers Emile Nadeau and Miha Fontaine.
The competition in Le Relais are scheduled to start on Wednesday with women’s qualifications at 9:25 local time, men’s qualifications following up at 12:15 and finals coming right after at 14:00.
WATCH LIVE
Wednesday
Eurosport 2 (Asia + Europe), CBC Streaming (Canada), CCTV (China), CZ Sport (Czech Republic), Viaplay (Denmark), V Sport 1 (Finland), Arena (Hungary), V Sport + (Norway), Polsat Sport News (Poland), streaming on JOJ Sport (Slovakia), Viaplay (Sweden), SRF ZWEI (Switzerland), streaming on https://skiandsnowboard.live/ (USA), FIS Freestyle Youtube channel
QUICK LINKS:
Le Relais World Cup FIS data page (start lists, results, etc.)
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