Brookes and Kimura frontrunners for globes in Copper Mountain big air finale
Dec 13, 2023·Snowboard Park & Pipe
The FIS Snowboard Park & Pipe World Cup is right back at it with one of our biggest weeks of the season going down in Colorado right now, as we return to Copper Mountain for the final competitions of the 2023 calendar year - the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix halfpipe World Cup and the Visa Big Air World Cup, going down from 13-16 December.
Big air will see qualifications taking place on Wednesday, followed by finals on Friday, while halfpipe qualies will go down on Thursday with finals on Saturday.
With the FIS Freeski pipe and big air squads also on hand here in Copper we sending 2023 into the sunset with one of the biggest convergences of park & pipe athletes you’ll anywhere on the planet, and with this being the first U.S. competitions of the season the names up and down both the big air and the pipe start lists are about as heavy as it comes.
BROOKES AND IWABUCHI SET TO SQUARE OFF FOR WOMEN’S GLOBE
This week’s Visa Big Air at Copper Mountain is the already the big air World Cup’s season finale, as we front-loaded the competition calendar with big jump action before we move on to slopestyle in the new year.
After the Big Air Chur, the Beijing big air and last week’s Edmonton Style Experience, it’s currently Mia Brookes of Great Britain and Japan’s Kira Kimura sitting atop the respective women’s and men’s World Cup standings - Brookes with a total of 190 points and a 39-point lead over second place Reira Iwabuchi (JPN), and Kimura with 185 points and a narrow five-point lead over Su Yiming (CHN).
With both big air third-overall ranked Anna Gasser (AUT) and last weekend’s Style Experience winner Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (NZL) dropping out of this week’s competition at Copper, it’s going to be all eyes on Brookes and Iwabuchi, as the 16-year-old Brookes looks to become the youngest-ever big air crystal globe winner by holding off Iwabuchi, who’s on the hunt for her second-consecutive and fourth total big air trophy.
Also still mathematically in the hunt for the women and on hand here in Copper are Miyabi Onitsuka and Mari Fukada, both also of Japan. However, with the way Brookes and Iwabuchi have been riding so far this season the likelihood of anyone else catching one or both of them is slim indeed.
Not in the crystal globe hunt but on the Copper start list and capable of disrupting the narrative this week are a few other big names, with the USA’s own Julia Marino and Hailey Langland, and Kokomo Murase of Japan tops amongst them. Both Marino and Murase will be dropping in on their first World Cups of the season this week, while Langland will be looking for a repeat, or better, of last season’s Copper performance, where she came second.
KIMURA AND SU LOCKED IN TIGHT MEN’S GLOBE BATTLE
Over on the men’s side of things, while we saw Kimura miss the podium for the first time in his World Cup career last week in Edmonton, he did still manage to finish fourth behind a podium that saw two Olympic gold medallists and the reigning big air World Champion standing on it.
Which is to say, there’s no shame in a fourth place finish there.
World Champ Taiga Hasegawa took the win in Edmonton, besting Beijing 2022 Olympic gold medallist and this year’s Beijing big air World Cup winner Su Yiming and PyeongChang 2018 Olympic slopestyle gold medallist Red Gerard, who finished third to earn his first World Cup big air podium in over four years.
While Gerard made a big leap up the standings with his podium in Edmonton, almost any way you slice it it’s looking like an all-Asia finish in the big air top-3 rankings on the men’s side, with Ryoma Kimata and Hiroto Ogiwara also within striking distance of Kimura, Su and Hasegawa should a number of factors go their respective ways.
In fact, it’s only Nic Laframboise of Canada as the lone non-Asian rider still holding a mathematical chance of landing somewhere on the 2023/24 big air World Cup overall top-3 by the end of competition this week, and that’s a long shot at best.
That being said, there’s a whole bunch of other reasons to sit up and pay attention to the Visa Big Air at Copper this week, and as you might expect a bunch of those reasons are the U.S. riders on hand.
With Gerard leading the way, the USA will also see Chris Corning and Judd Henkes dropping in on their first World Cups of the season, along with Luke Winkelmann, Jake Canter, Brock Crouch and Sean Fitzsimons. Top to bottom, the USA’s line-up this week features some of the most progressive and respected names in snowboarding, and big things can and should be expected.
Leading the way from Europe should be the Norwegian duo of Marcus Kleveland and Mons Roisland. Kleveland needs no introduction, but in short he was last year’s winner here in Copper and is, arguably, the most talented snowboarder in the world. Roisland, meanwhile, holds silver medals from both the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games and the Bakuriani 2023 World Championships, and seems to live for the big moments.
Ian Matteoli (ITA), Nicolas Huber (SUI), Valentino Guseli (AUS) and Dongheon Lee (KOR) are just a few of the other names sure to be pushing for a spot in the 10-man final on Friday.
Stay tuned to our social channels for where-to-watch and livestream info closer to finals.
QUICK LINKS
Copper Mountain data page (start lists, livescoring, results)
FIS TV livestream and highlights
