Austria’s Anna Gasser thrills home crowd with 10th big air victory in Kreischberg
Jan 11, 2025·Snowboard Park & Pipe
Double Olympic champion Anna Gasser took home a record 10th World Cup big air victory in front of a home crowd at Big Air Kreischberg, while China’s Yang Wenlong claimed his first World Cup win with an epic final-run effort.
Thirty-three-year-old Gasser took the win on Saturday night with a total score of 167.75, 10 points ahead of runner-up Reira Iwabuchi (JPN) and her combined score of 157.75 points. Seventeen-year-old Mia Brookes (GBR) finished third on 148.00 points.
Saturday’s result marks Gasser’s 20th big air World Cup podium, her 13th career World Cup win and her 31st overall World Cup podium in a career spanning big air, slopestyle, two world championship titles, and three editions of the Olympic Winter Games including gold medals from Beijing 2022 and Pyeongchang 2018.
On top of setting a new World Cup benchmark in big air victories, at 33 years old Gasser is also the oldest World Cup winner in FIS Snowboard Park & Pipe history.
Gasser took an early lead on Saturday after the judges awarded her 93.00 points for her first run featuring a cab triple 1260 drunk driver. As the first woman to ever land a triple cork rotation, it took until Saturday night for Gasser to finally put one down in competition.
Gasser then followed up her triple 1260 with a back double cork 1080 melon in run two which, though it earned a relatively low score of 74.75, was more than enough to put her atop the Kreischberg podium for the third time in her career.
Gasser’s first run score was the highest of the women’s final. Mari Fukada (JPN) received the second-highest run score of the evening with 85.25 for her second run for her switch backside 1080 drunk driver, but ultimately finished fifth.
Iwabuchi’s second place finish on Saturday is her second this season after she was runner-up to Fukada at the snowboard big air season opener in Chur in October.
Before Saturday, Gasser had claimed third place at Beijing in December and finished within the top five twice since the 2024/25 FIS Snowboard World Cup season began in September. The last time the 33-year-old finished atop a World Cup podium was in December 2023 in Beijing.
The three-time Olympian said Saturday’s win was even more special as she plans to stop competing after the Milano Cortina 2026 Games.
“I’m not going to go for it much longer, probably this World Cup was the last World Cup in big air for me on home soil because it’s only every two years, and after the Olympics will be my final one,” said Gasser.
The men’s final came down to the third and final runs, with Yang Wenlong claiming victory after landing a backside 1980 Japan which earned him 96.50 points.
Combined with his first run score of 86.00 for a front double cork 1800 weddle to tailgrab, Yang took the win with a combined score of 182.50 while reigning World Champion Taiga Hasegawa (JPN) finished second on 180.25 points.
Third place honours went to Japanese compatriot and last season’s big air Crystal Globe winner Kira Kimura, who finished with a two-run score of 168.75.
Yang’s win is his second podium of the season after he finished third in Beijing.
With Saturday’s result and four out of five big air events of the World Cup season completed, Hasegawa has all but locked up what could be the first Crystal Globe of his career on the strength of Saturday’s finish along with his win in Klagenfurt last week and his victory in Chur. With 309 points, Hasegawa is 99 points ahead of second overall finisher Ian Matteoli of Italy.
In the women’s World Cup standings, Brookes now leads the big air and overall Park & Pipe rankings ahead of Japan’s Mari Fukada. Saturday marks the first time in four big air events that 18-year-old Fukada did not claim a podium spot since the season began.
Brookes, on the other hand, has finished within the top three, including back-to-back wins at Klagenfurt last week and in Beijing in December, at every big air event this season. The British teenager was also runner-up at the slopestyle season-opener in Cardrona (NZL) in September.
The last big air competition of the 2024/25 FIS Snowboard World Cup season will take place in Aspen between 5 and 6 February 2025.
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