Slopestyle World Cup set to go down in Calgary
Feb 14, 2020·Snowboard Park & Pipe
A huge week of action at the Calgary Snow Rodeo will conclude on Sunday with FIS Snowboard Slopestyle World Cup competition on Sunday, after a heavy field of 70 of the world’s best riders test the limits of the Calgary course in qualifications on Friday.
The Snow Rodeo course was designed by Charles Beckinsale of Stomping Grounds fame, and features three rail sections at the top of course with myriad of hitting options, followed by a two-sided quarterpipe/tabletop hybrid, then a big hybrid jump with twin kickers and a rollover/butter section down the middle, and finally a straight-up monster booter to finish things off. As one would expect, the course has been getting rave reviews all week.
Qualifications begin at 9:30 on Friday morning, while finals are slated to go down on Sunday beginning at 13:00. Read on to get the lowdown on what to look for in the coming days…
World Cup leader Ormerod looking for fourth-straight slopestyle podium
Three competitions into the 2019/20 FIS Snowboard Slopestyle World Cup season and it’s Great Britain’s Katie Ormerod sitting atop the women’s rankings with 2000 points earned through three-straight podium finishes, including a third two weeks ago in Mammoth Mountain (USA). It’s been an incredible comeback season for Ormerod after missing two nearly years of riding due to injury, and the 22-year-old can be counted on to keep things rolling in Calgary.
Ormerod will be in tough against a couple of Canadians, however, as Laurie Blouin and Brooke Voigt will both be shooting for the top of the podium on home soil in Calgary.
Second place on the women’s standings and runner-up to Jamie Anderson (USA) at Mammoth two weeks ago, the PyeongChang 2018 silver medallist and Sierra Nevada 2017 world champion Blouin is still searching for her first career slopestyle World Cup win. With Anderson not competing in Calgary and Blouin riding exceptionally well, this weekend Calgary may well be her time to shine.
Voigt, meanwhile, took third place in Seiser Alm back in January, and finished runner-up at each of the previous Calgary slopestyle World Cups, in 2009/10 and 2010/11. Though those results were a decade ago, 26-year-old Voigt remains one of the world’s best, and should once again compete for the podium this time around.
Others to watch out for on the women’s side include Silje Norendal (NOR), who will be dropping in on her first slopestyle World Cup of the season after suffering an injury at the Beijing big air World Cup back in December, Sina Candrian of Switzerland, Belgium’s Loranne Smans, Cheryl Maas of the Netherlands, and Annika Morgan of Germany.
Rookie Henricksen leads World Cup after first career win in Mammoth
Over on the men’s side, Dusty Henricksen of the USA has taken the slopestyle world by storm in his first full season of international competition, qualifying first at the stacked Laax Open (where he’d end up finishing ninth), winning slopestyle gold at the Lausanne 2020 Youth Olympic Games, and then following that up with his first World Cup win on home soil at Mammoth two weeks ago. Explosive, creative, stylish and fearless, Henricksen already more than holds his own amongst the world’s best despite just turning 17 less than two weeks ago, and he leads the men’s World Cup standings with 1290 points.
Speaking of the world’s best, a pretty impressive collection of those riders are on hand here in Calgary and keen to give the Snow Rodeo set-up the business.
Judd Henkes sits just behind Henricksen on the slopestyle rankings with 1200 points and has two third-place finishes so far in the 2019/20 slopestyle World Cup season - at Laax and Mammoth, as well as a fourth-place finish at the Atlanta (USA) big air event. With Henricksen and Henkes, as well as their teammates like Lyon Farrell, Sean Fitzsimons, and Ryan Stassel, the US squad is looking formidable.
Canada will be represented strongly by the likes of Darcy Sharpe, Mikey Ciccarelli and Tyler Nicholson, amongst others. Sharpe took an impressive win in tough conditions at the X Games back in January, and should still be riding high heading in action on home turf in Calgary for what will be his first World Cup slopestyle competition in two and a half years.
Then there’s the non-North Americans, with some impressive names jump off the entries list.
The Norwegian contingent is looking strong with the likes of X Games Aspen silver medallist Mons Roisland and style icon Fridtjof Tischendorf foremost amongst them, while the Japanese will rest their hopes on the likes of Ruki Tobita, Hiroaki Kunitake, and Ryoma Kimata - the latter of whom earned second place in Mammoth in his first ever slopestyle World Cup.
Clemens Millauer of Austria, Niek van der Velden of the Netherlands, Nicolas Huber of Switzerland…the list of strong riders from around the world on hand in Calgary is a long one indeed, and it should be quite the show come finals time on Sunday.
WATCH LIVE:
Eurosport 1 Asia, Eurosport Player, ORF Sport +, YLE Areena, L’Equipe Web, RAI Web, SRF Info, SVT Play, NBC Olympic Channel
QUICK LINKS:
Calgary data page (start lists, live scoring, results)
