USA kicks off World Champs with gold in aerials team event
Feb 19, 2023·Freestyle
The first Freestyle medal event at the Bakuriani 2023 FIS Freestyle, Snowboard and Freeski World Championships went down in epic fashion on Saturday, with Ashley Caldwell, Chris Lillis and Quinn Dehlinger of the USA claiming aerials mixed team World Championships gold, followed by China with silver and Ukraine taking home the bronze.
After a couple of tough days of training due to strong winds at the aerials site at Bakuriani’s Kokhta venue, Mother Nature was finally on the athletes side on Sunday, and the calmer conditions allowed the best three skiers from each nation in the finals to put on explosive show for the packed Georgian crowd on hand.
Team USA was on fire all day long, leading the way in both rounds of the finals and winning the competition with a final combined score of 331.37 points.
In the superfinal Caldwell put down a solid back Full double Full, while Lillis, who jumped second, came through with a near-perfect double Full-Full-Full, putting USA in the lead with just one more round of jumps reaming in the competition.
Last but not least for the U.S. squad was Quinn Dehlinger, who was fresh off his first ever World Cup win a couple of weeks ago back in Canada. On Sunday Dehlinger managed to put his double Full-Full-Full down to his feet under enormous pressure, consequently sealing the deal for the US team for their first world championships aerials team gold medal.
Second place on the day went to the Chinese team on account of great jumping from Kong Fanyu, Li Tianma and Yang Longxiao, who finished the competition just back of the USA with 320.71 points to snag the silver medal. It was the second runner-up position for China since the aerials team event was added into the World Championship programme in 2017.
Rounding out the podium in third place was Ukraine, with Anastasiya Novosad, Oleksandr Okipnuk and Dmytro Kotovskyi all putting down some exceptional runs on Sunday. However, with Novosad lead the team into second spot after the first round of the superfinal, neither Okipniu nor Kotovskyi were able to land their jumps cleanly, and at the end of the day the Ukrainian team had to settle for the the bronze medal.
Kazakhstan finished the competition in fourth, with Canada following in fifth place.
The aerials action at the Bakuriani 2023 World Championships continues on Tuesday, February 21 with qualifications for the individual event and the finals following up on Wednesnday, February 22 at 14:00 local time.
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