Halfpipe field saddles up for the Snow Rodeo season finale in Calgary
Feb 09, 2024·Snowboard Park & Pipe
The 2023/24 FIS Snowboard halfpipe World Cup season is set to come to a close this weekend in Canada, where the Calgary Snow Rodeo will once again take to the legendary WinSport Canada Olympic Park pipe for qualifications on Friday and finals under the lights on Saturday beginning at 19:00 local time.
This year’s edition of the Snow Rodeo will mark the 10th time that the FIS Snowboard World Cup has been on the scene in Calgary for halfpipe competition, with our first visit coming all the way back in 1995 at the end of the very first halfpipe World Cup season in FIS Snowboard history, and the most recent being last winter’s season finale.
Qualifications at the Calgary Snow Rodeo will be going down on Friday, with the men leading things off at 10:30 MT, followed by the women at 14:00. Finals will then take place under the lights on Saturday, dropping in at 19:00.
ONO ON TRACK FOR BACK-TO-BACK GLOBES
It’s been a busy halfpipe World Cup season this winter, with four stops leading up to the World Cup finals in Calgary - Secret Garden (CHN), Copper Mountain (USA), Laax (SUI) and Mammoth Mountain (USA).
Along the way we’ve seen lead changes on both the women’s and men’s World Cup standings. However, heading into the final event of the season it’s last year’s crystal globe winners Mitsuki Ono and Ruka Hirano of Japan once again atop the rankings, with each rider just needing one more strong performance to make it a pair of back-to-back titles.
Ono comes into Calgary with a hefty 50 point lead over second-ranked Bea Kim (USA), despite the fact that the Japanese style queen missed the first competition of the season in Secret Garden. Beginning her 2023/24 campaign with a second place finish in Copper Mountain, Ono then went back-to-back with wins in Laax and Mammoth, and rolls into Calgary with 280 points.
Ono needs only a fourth-place finish or better to lock down her second straight crystal globe, and when you consider that the 19-year-old has eight straight World Cup podiums dating back to the end of the 2021/22 competition season (including last season’s victory here in Calgary), it seems all-but-assured that she’ll step up and get the job done this week.
With 230 points, Kim is having a massively successful rookie season on the World Cup circuit, locking down three fourth-place finishes as well as her first career World Cup podium at the biggest event of the season in Laax. To end up anywhere in the top-3 by season’s end in Calgary on Saturday will be a huge win for both Kim and the U.S. halfpipe program.
More positives for the U.S. team comes in the form of Maddie Mastro, who currently sits third overall for the women, just behind Kim with 212 points. While Mastro has third place finishes in three of four competitions so far this season, she’s never hit the podium in Calgary. Should she earn herself a top-3 finish this week, it will be the 15th podium of her career, and could be enough to leapfrog her over Kim and into at least second on the final halfpipe World Cup rankings for 2023/24.
Others to keep an eye on in the women’s field include last week’s Mammoth Mountain second-place finisher and Beijing 2022 Olympic bronze medallist Sena Tomita of Japan, Canada’s own Brooke D’hondt (who will be looking for her first career World Cup podium on home soil), big-boosting Sonora Alba of the USA, and Switzerland’s Berenice Wicki.
JAMES LOOKING TO TRACK DOWN HIRANO FOR MEN’S TITLE
Over on the men’s side of things it’s Ruka Hirano leading the pack with 246 points, despite the fact he has yet to win a competition so far this season.
However, while he might not have a W to his credit in 2023/24, Hirano does have two second-place finishes and a third so far this winter, and is the winner of both the last two Calgary halfpipe World Cup competitions. It’s certainly not unreasonable to slot him in as the tentative favourite this week in Calgary.
The number one contender capable of crushing Hirano’s hopes for a second-straight crystal globe will be the big man Scotty James, who sits just 17 points back of Hirano with 229 points thus far in 2023/24, despite sitting out last weekend’s competition in Mammoth.
With victories so far this season in Secret Garden and at the Laax Open - as well his sixth X Games win two weeks ago - James is riding as good, if not better, than he ever has, in what is his 16th season of World Cup competition. While James’ previous best result in Calgary is a runner-up finish from 2020, should he be able to get the win this week it will be the 10th victory of his World Cup career, and would also give him his fifth career crystal globe title.
The current third-ranked rider on the 2023/24 men’s halfpipe World Cup rankings is last week’s Mammoth Mountain winner Yuto Totsuka who, with 184 points, is mathematically, if not realistically, still in the crystal globe hunt. Totsuka was the winner here in Calgary back in 2018/19 when he was just 16 years old. However, last season in Calgary he struggled to an eighth place finish.
Further down the list but also still capable finishing in the halfpipe top-3 rankings is Shuichiro Shigeno, also of Japan, who earned his first career World Cup podium here in Calgary last season. While he doesn’t have any podiums to show for it in 2023/24, Shigeno has been charging this season, and the man who stomped the first ever halfpipe 1800 a few weeks in Laax can be counted on to bring some swagger to the proceedings in the coming days.
With Kaishu Hirano (JPN) and Valentino Guseli (AUS) also on hand, the Snow Rodeo will feature the two biggest-boosting halfpipe riders on planet Earth this weekend, with both looking to double their 2023/24 World Cup halfpipe podium count at the season’s final event. Meanwhile, the likes of Lucas Foster (USA), Liam Gill (CAN), David Habluetzel (SUI) and Andre Hoefflich (GER) will look to break up the Japanese-Australian party that has been a signature of the halfpipe podium so far this season.
Livestream for qualies will be available at on the CBC Sports Player, while finals livestream (with geo-restrictions) will be available on FIS TV and on our YouTube channel.
QUICK LINKS
Calgary Snow Rodeo halfpipe World Cup data page (start lists, live scoring, results)
