Scott and Kotovskyi on top in Deer Valley’s aerials event
Feb 10, 2023·Freestyle
The second day of the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup extravaganza in Deer Valley went in the books in extraordinary fashion, as Danielle Scott (AUS) took a huge win in the women’s competition to reclaim the World Cup leader’s yellow bib, while Dmytro Kotovskyi (UKR) landed one of the most difficult jumps in history of aerial skiing to snag his career’s first World Cup victory.
Straight from an exciting moguls competition on Thursday, the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup tour was back in action again on Friday, this time for the fourth aerials competition of the 2022/23 season. And yet once again the night event at Deer Valley’s White Owl aerials venue didn’t disappoint as the aerials competition was a truly top-tier showcase of world’s best aerial skiing on a perfectly prepared course and with some thousands of happy fans on hand to celebrate a handful of remarkable showings.
In the women’s competition it was Danielle Scott, who stormed to her second victory of the season and outscoring her competition by a solid margin by laying down some impressive triples in the finals. Scott and her teammate Laura Peel were the only athletes on the women’s side of things to perform the triple flips at Deer Valley.
And while Peel couldn’t quite lay down her trick clean, once we were down to top-6 athletes in the super final, Scott put down a remarkable Lay-Full-Full for her career’s highest score of 115.20 points, which is also one of the highest we’ve seen on the World Cup tour in the recent history.
With the win on Friday, Scott reclaimed the aerials World Cup leader’s yellow bib from Marion Thenault (CAN), who finished the competition at Deer Valley in second place with 99.97 points for her Full double Full.
After four out of six competitions so far in 2022/23, Scott leads the way with 282 points and just 7 points advantage over second Thenault. Laura Peel sits third with 182 points and with just two competitions left in the season it looks like the battle for the crystal globe will go between Scott and Thenault.
Competing in her first event of 2022/23 season, Kong Fanyu rounded out the podium in third place with 94.11 points for her double Full-Full.
Moving over to the men’s side of the event, Dmytro Kotvskyi was simply on another level, stomping on of the hardest trick in aerial skiing - a Full triple Full-Full also known as “the Hurricane”, for which he claimed a mind-blowing score of 138.32 points (and if we remember correctly it is also the highest score ever on the World Cup tour) and a well-deserved career’s first World Cup victory.
Li Tianma (CHN) came with a superb performance on just his sixth World Cup start to claim his first podium with 119.47 points for his Full double Full-Full in the super final.
Completing the men’s podium with a third place finish was another Chinese young gun Chen Shuo, who also snagged his career’s first World Cup top-3, and making it a truly outstanding performance as the 18-year-old athletes competed in his first ever World Cup competition in Deer Valley. Chen received a score of 110.16 points for his Full-Full-Full in the big final on Friday.
Despite missing out on a spot in finals, Noe Roth (SUI) maintained his top spot in the men’s aerials World Cup standing, and after four competitions in 2022/23 he leads the way with 269 points. With the win in Deer Valley Dmytro Kotovskyi jumped in second place with 251 points, while Christopher Lillis (USA) sits in third with 179 points.
The FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup action continues on Saturday with a third and final competition day in Deer Valley, moving back to Champion Run for a highly anticipated dual moguls event.
QUICK LINKS
Deer Valley World Cup FIS data page (start lists, results, etc.)
Full results: AERIALS WOMEN / AERIALS MEN
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