Laax Open closes with some halfpipe magic from Castellet and James
Jan 18, 2020·Snowboard Park & Pipe
An incredible week at the Laax Open 2020 FIS Snowboard World Cup closed out with what is, year in and year out, one of the most special evenings in snowboarding, as 18 of the world’s best riders - six women and 12 men - took to Laax’s legendary halfpipe to duke it out for the 2020 Laax Open title. There, Queralt Castellet of Spain and Australia’s Scotty James would walk away victorious from an outstanding competition.
As always at the Laax Open halfpipe finals, a massive crowd was on hand on Saturday night to watch the world’s best do their thing, with the pipe lined with fans six-deep from top to bottom, the grandstand at the bottom of the pipe overflowing, and all eyes trained on what most consider to be the very best halfpipe in the world.
Castellet takes next step, onto top of Laax podium
The top rider to qualify from Thursday’s women’s semifinals, Castellet dropped last in the first run of the two-run final on Saturday night and simply put down what was one of the best runs of her career, kicking things off with a massively stylish lien air straight into massive back-to-back 900s in the middle of her run (backside then frontside), followed by an air-to-fakie, and a switch backside 540 mute to finish things off.
Putting it all down big, clean, and smooth, Castellet would be rewarded with a score of 90.00 and top spot heading into run two.
In their second runs, Castellet’s top competitors both stepped it up a notch, as the Chinese duo of Cai Xuetong and Liu Jiayu upped their run difficulty in an attempt to topple their Spanish competitor. However, while both would improve their scores, neither would be able to best the 30-year-old Spaniard, with Cai finishing in second with a score of 87.25 and Liu just back in third with a 85.75.
And with that, after a third place finish in 2018 and a second-place result last season, all that was left for Castellet was to put down a stylish victory lap before finally climbing onto the top step of the podium at the most well-renowned competition in snowboarding.
“It’s a dream for me to win here in Laax,” said an emotional Castellet, who has adopted Laax as her second home for much of the year, “I’ve got a lot of good memories here, such good energy…it’s my favourite place to ride and my favourite pipe to ride and I’m really, really happy. I’m really stoked. I’m…I’m out of words.”
With her third-place finish Liu was able to maintain her lead atop the 2019/20 FIS Snowboard Halfpipe World Cup leaderboard, with 2400 points to Castellet’s 2240.
James raises the bar yet again
Over on the men’s side of things it almost felt like it this time, it was personal for Scotty James when he dropped in last for his first run of finals.
As the top qualifier per usual, James had last-run honours in finals, with second-overall qualifier Yuto Totsuka dropping in ahead of him. Just before Totsuka’s first run the big screen at the top of the Laax pipe played a clip in which the 19-year-old Japanese rider declared, “I want to beat Scotty James in Laax.”
While Totsuka was smiling in the clip, you could sense the honesty in his voice, and the two-time reigning halfpipe crystal globe winner proceeded to drop in and stomp one of the best runs of his life, including a double cork frontside 1440 that essentially no other rider on earth has in their repertoire.
It earned him a score of 92.25, but, as it would quickly become apparent, it also added a little extra fuel to the fire that burns in Scotty James.
Dropping in almost as soon as the scores for Totsuka had been announced, James proceeded to put on a clinic.
Starting out with a switch backside double cork 1260 that’s recognized as the de-facto most difficult trick in pipe riding, into a cab double cork 1080 on his second hit, it was shaping up to be the quintessential James run - fluid, clean, and astonishingly difficult.
Next up was an ‘easy’ frontside 900 nose grab, and then a regular backside double 1260 mute that would set up for his final trick of the run.
There, the 25-year-old had a little extra magic up his sleeve - lest the judges have any reservations about who the king of pipe riding would be on the night - as he dropped his own frontside double cork 1440 stalefish in the spot where he would normally do a 1260, putting a heavy exclamation point on what was already shaping up to be an incredible effort.
His score would come in as a 95.75, and no one else’s best efforts would touch it.
“It feels absolutely amazing,” James smiled after he completed a high-five victory lap down the sides of the pipe, “I know coming into tonight it was going to be really tough, everyone was going to bring their A-game, but I was ready to go there. I know Yuto was going to go for it so I didn’t take anything for granted and I was ready to go again (in my second run) if I needed to, but it’s definitely sweet to be able to come down and say thank you to everyone that’s come out to watch us tonight. It really does mean the world and it makes our job so enjoyable.
“So to the whole town of Laax and the people who have come from a long way away to watch, thank you so much. This victory is as sweet as ever.”
With three wins in three World Cup events so far this season, James has a perfect 3000 points for the World Cup lead, while Totsuka, with three runner-ups in three events, duly sits in second with 2400 points.
Third place on the night’s competition would go to the USA’s Taylor Gold, in a gutsy performance that was remarkable in its own right.
Having last landed on a World Cup podium back in December of 2014, Gold has slowly battled his way back from a slew of injuries to once again become a regular on the halfpipe circuit. On Saturday all his incredible struggle paid off, as the 26-year-old once again made it into the World Cup top three, while stomping a never-been-done-in-competition double Michaelchuk 1080 melon-to-indy in the process.
It was an emotional scene at the bottom of the pipe in a number of ways when Gold’s score of 87.00 came in to bump Switzerland’s own Jan Scherrer down into fourth place, and another fitting chapter was added to the long and storied history of what is perhaps the greatest contest in snowboarding.
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