Kong and Roth crowned aerials World Champions in snowy Bakuriani
Feb 23, 2023·Freestyle
Following some tough weather conditions over the last couple of days here at the Bakuriani 2023 FIS Freestyle Ski, Snowboard and Freeski World Championships, mother nature finally played along on Thursday and the aerials competition took to the skies in an exceptional display of high-flying action. There Kong Fanyu (CHN) took the win in the women’s event, while Noe Roth (SUI) stormed to victory over on the men’s side of things.
With women’s qualifications already completed on Tuesday and men’s qualifiers done earlier in the morning, the top athletes were all ready for their showdowns in the round of 12, hoping to qualify through the next round to fight for victory in the superfinal.
In the women’s event it was Kong (CHN) who was on fire all day long leading up to the superfinal, where her clean double Full-Full earned here a score of 85.30 points and the World Championships gold medal in the process.
Kong, the bronze medallist from the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games, stepped things up a notch on Thursday to claim the biggest win of her career, also snagging her second medal at the Bakuriani 2023 World Championships after her silver medal performance with Team China in the mixed team event.
Second place on the day went to Danielle Scott (AUS), who received a score of 83.84 points for her Lay-Tuck-Full. While it was the most difficult jump performed in the women’s event once we were down to top-6 superfinal, Scott wasn’t quite able to land her trick cleanly and at the end of the day she had to settle for the second spot. With the silver medal in Georgia, Scott now has three top-3 finishes at the World Championships, including bronze from Voss (NOR) back in 2013 and another silver from Sierra Nevada (ESP) in 2017.
Anastasiya Novosad (UKR) rounded out the podium in third place for her second bronze medal in Georgia after also scoring third-place with the Ukrainian squad in the team events. In the big final Novosad performed a Full-Full, for which she received a score of 82.84 points.
Moving over to the men’s event it was Switzerland’s Noe Roth who came through with a clutch performance in the big final to claim the first ever aerials World Championships gold medal for Switzerland in the individual event. After making the cut into final top-6, Roth put it down clean when it mattered most, sending it to the moon on his Full-double Full-Full, for which he received a score 118.59 points and the Bakuriani 2023 gold.
Quinn Dehlinger (USA) finished the competition in second place, claiming his second medal of the Bakuriani World Championships following his gold medal performance in Sunday’s team event. On Thursday Dehlinger put down a solid double Full-Full-Full for a score of 114.48 points and his second medal in just his first World Championships appearance.
Third place and the bronze medal went to Yang Longxiao (CHN) - also for his second medal this week at the Bakuriani 2023 World Championships after earning silver with China in the team event. In the big final the 20-year-old Yang performed a Full double Full-Full, which was enough for 110.18 points and consequently third spot on the podium.
With the aerials portion of World Championships now in the books we’ll move over to the moguls venue, with the individual moguls event scheduled to take place on Saturday, February 25, followed by dual moguls on Sunday, February 26.
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