Sofya Fedorova earns first win at Seiser Alm and claims the slopestyle World Cup title

The season's ultimate ladies' slopestyle competition of the FIS Snowboard World cup tour has concluded with an historical win at Seiser Alm, Italy today.

Sofya Fedorova not only earned her career's first but also became the first female snowboarder from Russia to win a slopestyle World Cup event and the discipline's World Cup title.

The 19-year-old goofy rider is the fourth Russian to win a crystal globe and the first to do so in a snowboard freestyle discipline since all other titles earned before have been won by alpine snowboarders like Ekaterina Tudegesheva (3), Alena Zavarzina (1) and Andrey Sobolev (1).

To get her chapter in the history books, Fedorova dominated the 600 metres long course and its three-feature jibbing section and three-kicker jump line built by F-Tech Snowparks on the bottom part of the Snowpark Seiser Alm's pro line.

Fedorova landed a switch boardslide to normal, a boardslide to 50-50 to frontside 180 out, a cab 180 on frontside 180 out as well as a cab underflip mute to backside 720 indy and a frontside 540 indy to earn a 80.46 in the second run of the three run, best one count final which featured yesterday's top six qualifiers.

“Oh my God!” she cheered. “I can't believe it. I still believe that it's a dream, and I just don't want to wake up. I'm so excited. It's just insane.”

Before going into the final slopestyle of this winter, her season had already been a great one as the young gun had earned a fourth place finish at the Air + Style in Beijing (CHN) and a sixth rank in the Snowmass Grand Prix World Cup (USA).

No wonder she commented on her second ever full season: “It's been a nice season for me. I was close to the podium a few times but finishing the season off like this in my last competition, I'm very stoked.”

Fedorova edged off Silje Norendal to the second rank as the Norwegian who had been leading after run one couldn't counter the Russian with her third run score of 78.26 for her nosepress to 50-50 frontside 180 out, switch 50-50, cab 540 indy, backside 720 mute and a frontside rodeo 720 indy to finish things off.

“The finals were good, although I was struggling a bit with the speed. I would have loved to go bigger on the first jump but didn't have the speed to do so. But I put down the best I could do in these conditions, and I'm happy with that,” said Norendal.

Sarka Pancochova (CZE) rounded out the podium with a solid second run which was awarded with a 76.05.

“It was an awesome today. The course is super fun. It wasn't crazy big but you could get creative on it. I had a very good practise in the morning, and then it just clicked and all tricks came together for the finals. I'm very happy to put one down in competition,” explained Pancochova after landing a boardslide to gap to 50-50 frontside 180 out, switch backside bluntslide 270 out in the jibbing section as well as a switch backside 180 mute to back-to-back 720s on the kicker line.

“I'm very glad with the result as the season has been very challenging with the weather for us. It's nice to finish the season off with a good competition,” the Czech rider added.

Due to the weather situation in South Tyrol, the ladies' finals had been brought forward by one day while the men's qualifiers of the final slopestyle World Cup of the season are scheduled for this afternoon with the finals slated for tomorrow 12:30 CET.

Click here for live scoring info and here for Live TV info.

The final stop of the FIS Snowboard Freestyle World Cup tour will take place in Canada next week as Quebec City is set to host a big air competition as part of the famous Jamboree festival.

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