Moscow ready to host another nighttime city event
Jan 22, 2021·Freestyle
Fresh off of an exciting weekend of freestyle action in Yaroslavl, the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup has moved 250 km to the south to Russia’s capital city of Moscow, where the third aerials World Cup event of the season is set to go down under the lights on Saturday, January 23.
This season’s competition marks the 11th iteration of Moscow’s World Cup event, and with a stacked field of athletes ready to give their best in Russia, we can expect a thrillingly high-flying event backdropped by dazzling views of the city from the iconic scaffold jump located in the famed Sparrow Hills area.
Coming into Moscow’s competition it’s Australia’s Laura Peel on top of the women’s World Cup standing, following her back-to-back victories to kick off the 2020/21 campaign in Ruka (FIN) and then Yaroslavl (RUS). In the second individual competition in Yaroslavl, however, Peel failed to land her trick and, as it was a one-round format event, she finished outside of top-20.
In Moscow Peel will be certainly looking for redemption, and with three top-3 in Moscow so far in her career, it’s fair to expect the reigning World Cup champion to contend for victory once again this Saturday.
But Peel will face some strong competition this weekend especially from the US athletes as they will be looking to repeat their strong performance from Yaroslavl last weekend, where Megan Nick, Ashley Caldwell and Kayla Kuhn each finished with a top-3 result for the weekend, while Caldwell also rose to the occasion in the team event to help the USA to a second-place finish.
Going down the starting list let’s not forget about the 2014 and 2018 Olympic champions Alla Tsuper and Hanna Huskova of Belarus, who skipped the opening event in Ruka (FIN), but managed to get straight into right gear in Yaroslavl. Tsuper scored her first podium in almost 10 years last Sunday, while Huskova came with two solid results - fifth and fourth place.
Last, but not least let’s not forget about the host nation’s squad, with Anastasiia Prytkova and Liubov Nikitiona sitting in sixth and seventh place, respectively, in the overall standing, while also each having a top-3 results already in the campaign.
Over on the men’s side keep an eye on the Russian Aerials Team, which has as many as four athletes in the aerials World Cup top-5, with Maxim Burov leading the way with a perfect record of three victories so far in the season. The Russian team has been showing an extraordinary form in 2020/21 with seven top-3 finishes in three individual competitions from the likes of afore-mentioned Burov, Pavel Krotov, Stanislav Nikitin and Maxim’s brother Ilia Burov. Krotov won the event in Moscow last year, while Nikitin earned his maiden World Cup win here two years ago. Also with one podium sweep from the Russian squad in Ruka back in December, it’s very likely that we will see the Russian squad trying to deliver another standout showing.
But there is a couple of other athletes that will be hoping to spoil the Russian party on their home turf in Moscow with the reigning World Cup champion Noe Roth and his Swiss teammates Pirmin Werner and Nicolas Gygax, Maksim Gustik and Makar Mitrafanau of Belarus, Justin Schoenenfeld and Eric Loughran of USA as well as Lewis Irving of Canada, all expected to throw some big tricks this weekend.
The competition in Moscow is set to get underway on Saturday, January 23 at 13:45 local time (11:45 CET) with qualifications runs and finals following right after at 19:00 (17:00 CET).
WATCH LIVE:
Eurosport player, Belarus 5 (Belarus), CBC Sports Streaming (Canada), CCTV 5 (China), Arena 4 (Hungary), Sport 1 (Lithuania), streaming on Olympic Channel/peacock TV (USA)
Live streaming will also be available on our Youtube channel - HERE. 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:
Moscow World Cup data page (startlists, live timing, results)
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