Krasnoyarsk ready for World Cup debut
Mar 06, 2020·Freestyle
Straight from an exciting double header World Cup weekend in Almaty (KAZ), the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup has moved over to Krasnoyarsk (RUS), where dual moguls competition will take place on Saturday, March 7, followed by aerials competition on Sunday, March 8. For moguls, Krasnoyarsk will be the penultimate event of the season, with two more competitions coming up in Idre Fjäll (SWE) on March 13-15. For aerials, on the other hand, this weekend’s competition will act as the 2019/20 World Cup season finals.
Located in the heart of Siberia, Krasnoyarsk is the first of two new stops on the 2019/20 FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup tour. The Sopka Cluster venue that played host to all freestyle, freeski and snowboard events during the 2019 Winter Universiade, is one of the most modern but also unique facilities for freestyle sports, with its compact layout making it a perfect spot for both training and competing.
And with the world’s best athletes on hand, some World Cup crystal globes to give away this weekend, and back-to-back night events set do go down under the lights, we’re sure that both dual moguls and aerials competitions in Krasnoyarsk will deliver top-tier freestyle shows.
Dual Moguls
The moguls World Cup tour will see its fourth dual moguls competition in 2019/20, and based on what went down in the previous events in Thaiwoo (CHN), Deer Valley (USA), and last week in Almaty (KAZ), we can expect another thrilling night of dual matchups this weekend.
On the women’s side watch out for Perrine Laffont (FRA), Justine Dufour-Lapointe (FRA), and Jaelin Kauf (USA), with each of the athletes having one dual victory so far this season - Laffont taking the win in Thaiwoo, Dufour-Lapointe prevailing in Deer Valley, and Kauf landing on top of the podium in Almaty.
The victories from Dufour-Lapointe and Kauf were the only times when Laffont has not finished on top of the podium in 2019/20. The 21-year-old Laffont has seven victories so far in the campaign, and last week she secured her third consecutive moguls World Cup title with three competitions still to go in the season. Again this weekend we should expect the French skier to showcase her best skiing, as well as her best tricks.
Besides the afore-mentioned trio of Laffont, Kauf, and Dufour-Lapointe, let’s not forget about this season’s current moguls World Cup second-ranked skier Jakara Anthony (AUS), as well as Hannah Soar (USA), Anri Kawamura (JPN), Anastasiia Smirnova (RUS), Tess Johnson (USA) and Kisara Sumiyoshi (JPN), who won the single moguls event on the venue in Krasnoyarsk at last year’s Universiade.
Switching over the men’s event, the anticipation is high after last week’s action in Almaty, that saw one of the most exciting dual finals in the history of mogul skiing go down between Canada’s Mikael Kingsbury and Japan’s Ikuma Horishima.
It was Horishima who managed to beat the “King of Moguls” Kingsbury at Almaty’s Shymbulak Mountain Resort last weekend for his third victory of the season. Horishima also won the dual moguls events at the Krasnoyarsk 2019 Winter Universiade, and there is no doubt the 22-year-old will do his best to top the podium in Russia yet again.
However, it’s hard to not to assume that it will be Kingsbury entering the competition in Krasnoyarsk as the number one favourite for the win on Saturday, with his two victories in dual moguls and six wins total in 2019/20. With only three more competitions left in the season, and over 200 points advantage over second in the World Cup ranking Horishima, Kingsbury needs just one more good results to clinch his ninth straight World Cup crystal globe. It’s vary rare to see Kingsbury off the top spot on the podium twice in a row, so given his second place from Almaty, it’s fair to expect Kingsbury to push it even harder this weekend.
Going down the starting list, also keep an eye on Benjamin Cavet (FRA), Dmitriy Reikherd (KAZ), Bradley Wilson (USA), Laurent Dumais (CAN), as well as the Elofsson brothers, Felix and Oskar, just to name a few of those who should contend for a spot on the podium in Krasnoyarsk.
Saturday’s dual moguls competition is set to kick off at 16:45 local time with preliminary rounds, and finals under the lights following up at 19:00.
Aerials
A highly entertaining aerials World Cup season will wrap up on Sunday, as the season’s seventh and the final event will finish off an action-packed weekend at Sopka Cluster. With the 2019/20 World Cup titles still within reach for a handful of athletes, the men’s and women’s “Rookie of the Year” honours to hand out, and the Nations Cup award also to be won this weekend, there’s plenty of excitement in store from the aerials event for all the freestyle fans around the globe.
In the women’s competition all eyes will be on Australia’s Laura Peel and China’s Xu Mengtao, as they are the only two athletes left in the battle for the 2019/20 aerials World Cup crystal globe. After last week’s event it’s Laura Peel who is leading the way, as she capitalised on the fact that the Chinese team - including Xu - did not participate in Almaty’s event. With just one competition left, Peel has 369 points, with Xu sitting in second place with 325 points. There is just 44 points separating two athletes, and it will be all up to those couple of jumps on Sunday deciding who will grab a title.
Worth mentioning is the fact that Peel could have already secured the title last week, coming into Almaty’s event as top qualifier, also leading the way after the first round of jumps in the finals. But Peel was not able to land her full-tuck-full on her last attempt of the day, and finished just behind the podium in fourth place.
Also noteworthy is the fact that Xu has only participated in four out of six events staged so far 2019/20. And in those events, the Chinese aerial skier performed exceptionally well, scoring two victories, one second place and one fifth place. If Xu manages to win again, with Peel landing outside of the podium on Sunday, Xu might be looking to extend her World Cup titles to four straight seasons, and six in her career.
With Peel and Xu engaged in a battle for the globe, we can also expect an interesting rivalry between USA’s Megan Nick and China’s Kong Fanyu, who still have real chances of getting on the 2019/20 World Cup overall podium. While currently it’s Belarus’ Aliaksandra Ramanouskaya who is sitting in third place, she won’t be competing in Krasnoyarsk following her unfortunate injury in Moscow (RUS) that has her sidelined for the rest of the season. This leaves both Nick and Kong with a big opportunity to finish the season in top-3, if they manage to perform well on Sunday.
Things are arguably even more exciting over in the men’s event, where as many as nine athletes could theoretically finish the season with the FIS Freestyle Ski Aerials World Cup title. There is exactly 94 point difference between the leader Noe Roth of Switzerland, and tenth in the ranking Pavel Dik of Belarus (with fifth Qi Guangpu of China not competing this weekend), which leaves almost an incredible number of possibilities for how the final World Cup standing will look like, once things are all said and done on Sunday.
Realistically, however, we can narrow down the field to just four athletes with the biggest chances to finish the season in top-3: Roth with his 286 points, second-ranked Maxim Burov (RUS) and his 273, Pirmin Werner (SUI) who’s in third with 260, and Pavel Krotov, who rounds out the top-4 with 254 points.
All in all it looks like it will be Switzerland versus Russia in the highly contested battle for the World Cup’s biggest honours this weekend, and while the Swiss athletes might have a little advantage in total points tally, Russia’s own Burov and Krotov competing in front of their home crowd will be highly-motivated to snatch the honours away from their Swiss counterparts.
That being said, let’s not exclude Canada’s Lewis Irving and USA’s Christopher Lillis, who are sitting in respective sixth and seventh place in the World Cup ranking. Both of the athletes had some impressive results in 2019/20 and with a bit of luck and under right circumstances they can still wrap up the season in the top-3.
Sunday’s aerials competitions are slated to get underway at 13:30 local time with women’s qualifications. Men’s qualifications are set for 16:00, with the evening finals starting at 19:00.
WATCH LIVE
Dual Moguls
Eurosport player, live streaming on CBC Sports Streaming (Canada), CCTV5+ (China), YLE Areena (Finland), L’Equipe Web (France), live streaming on RAI Web (Italy), Sports 4 ( Japan), live streaming on SVT Play (Sweden), live streaming on NBC Sports Gold (USA).
Aerials
Eurosport player, live streaming on CBC Sports Streaming (Canada), CCTV5+ (China), live streaming on RAI Web, live streaming on NBC Sports Gold (USA).
Live streaming will also be available on our Youtube channel - DUAL MOGULS & AERIALS. Please note that due to broadcasting rights restrictions, live streaming may not be available in your region. Full list of countries with the live streaming available can be found HERE.
QUICK LINKS:
Krasnoyarsk World Cup data page (startlists, live timing, results)
Competition programme: DUAL MOGULS / AERIALS
Photos: DUAL MOGULS / AERIALS
Livestream: DUAL MOGULS / AERIALS
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