Slopestyle World Cup comes back to Seiser Alm

The FIS Freeski World Cup is back on track this week in Italy for the third slopestyle competition of the season, which is set to take to the perfectly shaped course in Seiser Alm on January 25-27.

This week will be a third time that Seiser Alm will host the slopestyle World Cup competition at its award-winning terrain park, which is considered one of the best park in Europe and boasts a continuous line of 1.5 km containing over 70 different features and obstacles.

Over 80 freeskiers will be ready to drop in on Friday in the best-of-two runs qualifications format, with the best 6 ladies and top 10 men competing once again on Sunday in the finals slated to take place at 12:30 CET.

With some of the top athletes in the World Cup missing out on this year’s Seiser Alm competition due to the X Games invitation, the competition will provide a big opportunity for the young guns to step up their game and, possibly, find themselves standing on the World Cup podium.

However taking into consideration a field of riders that is deep in its own right, and looking back at some of the action from the previous years, we should still expect a top-level competition this weekend.

On the men’s side it’s good to keep an eye on well-established players like Colby Stevenson (USA), Kai Mahler (SUI), or Oliwer Magnusson (SWE). Stevenson won the first event in Seiser Alm two years ago, Mahler has two World Cup victories on his account, and Magnusson is currently placed sixth in the slopestyle World Cup standing, sitting in the highest rank of all the athletes present on site in the South Tyrolean resort.

Throw in some names like Max Moffat (CAN), Quinn Wolferman (USA), Hugo Burvall (SWE), or Antoine Adellise (FRA), just a few of the potential top competitors this week from the large group of riders on hand and hungry to do well this week and things are shaping up to be interesting indeed.

In the ladies’ competition the number one name to watch out for is the recent runner-up from the last stop of the slopestyle tour in Font Romeu (FRA), which is Eileen Gu of the USA. The 15-year-old American will be looking to take over the yellow World Cup leader bib from Sarah Hoefflin (SUI), who will be competing over at Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen (USA) on the same weekend. To do that Gu needs to finish in second place or higher to eliminate a 76-point advantage that the 2018 Olympic champion holds over her after two stops into the 2018/2019 season.

However the first athlete to stand in Gu’s way will be the local hero Silvia Bertagna (ITA), as the veteran rider will be trying to come back on top of the World Cup podium, taking advantage from the fact that their usual rivals are missing out this year in Seiser Alm.

Also count on Kea Kuehnel, who has already impressed the judges this season while finishing the big air competition in Milano in third, as well as Julia Krass (USA), Megan Oldham (CAN) and Kokone Konde (JPN), all with real chances to score their first World Cup top-3 finish.

WATCH LIVE:

ORF Sport + (Austria), CBC Sports Streaming (Canada), Eurosport player (Europe), YLE Areena (Finland), L'Equipe (France), RAI Play (Italy), Polsat Sport Extra (Poland), Teledeporte (Spain), NBC Sports Gold (USA)

QUICK LINKS

•    Seiser Alm FIS data page (event programme, start lists, live scoring, results)
•    FIS Freeski slopestyle World Cup calendar
•    Slopestyle World Cup leaderboard: LADIES / MEN
•    Slopesyle World Cup photos