Halfpipe World Cup moves on to Secret Garden
Dec 18, 2019·Snowboard Park & Pipe
The second halfpipe competition of the 2019/20 FIS Snowboard World Cup season is coming up this week in China’s Genting Secret Garden Resort, where strong women’s and men’s fields will take to the venue that’s destined to be the future home of competition for next year’s FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships and the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games in just over two years time. The riders on hand will be looking to finish off the 2010’s with a bang at the last competition before the holiday break, with the goal of building a little momentum towards the Games that looms just over horizon adding some extra incentive this weekend.
We’re fresh off last weekend’s halfpipe World Cup season-opener in Copper Mountain, where a Colorado winter storm added some extra drama to proceedings, but where also the world’s best were able to overcome the adversity with some standout performances in the Copper pipe.
For the women, that meant Spain’s Queralt Castellet rose to the occasion to take her fifth career World Cup victory in her 50th career start, showing the type of hard-charging amplitude and smooth style that’s going to make her a force to be reckoned with in a 23-foot Secret Garden superpipe that will demand the most out of the riders on hand in China.
The Chinese team comes into Secret Garden having won both of the previous World Cup stops at the venue, with Liu Jiayu taking top spot in 2017/18 and Cai Xuetong the win last year. Liu is fresh off a runner-up performance in Copper and riding well, while Cai - who won the halfpipe crystal globe last season for the fifth time in her career - finished sixth in Copper.
Others likely to be in the mix come finals time include the USA’s Maddie Mastro, who finished third in Copper behind Castellet and Liu, last season’s third overall women’s rider Verena Rohrer of Switzerland, and a strong Japanese team that features the likes of Sena Tomita, Kurumi Imai, and Mitsuki Ono.
Over on the men’s side of things you’d be hard-pressed to put your money on anyone other than Scotty James this weekend in Secret Garden, as the most dominant athlete in snowboarding over the past 12 months continues to charge full steam ahead. James took a commanding win in Copper Mountain to remind everybody who’s boss at the start of the 2019/20 season, and the 25-year-old should be amped up to make a statement at the future Olympic venue this weekend.
Yuto Totsuka and Ruka Hirano finished second and third, respectively, behind James last weekend, and last year’s crystal globe winner and runner-up also both hit the podium at last season’s Secret Garden World Cup, with Hirano finishing second and Totsuka in third. Totsuka also took third place two seasons ago here in China, and that duo look like the best chance of knocking James from his throne this weekend.
Jan Scherrer of Switzerland earned his first World Cup win in Secret Garden last season, and he and his teammate Pat Burgener both had strong showings in Copper on Saturday. Others to watch out for include Germany’s Andre Hoefflich, who earned a career-best sixth-place result in Copper, Chase Blackwell and Ryan Wachendorfer of the USA, and China’s own Zhang Yiwei.
Qualifications in Secret Garden are slated to get underway on Friday 10:30 local time, while the top eight women and 10 men will be dropping in on Sunday’s finals beginning at 11:00 local time (04:00 CET).
QUICK LINKS
Secret Garden data page (start lists, live scoring, results)
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