Alpe d’Huez ready for its World Cup debut
Dec 16, 2021·Freestyle
Following two weeks of the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup action in the Nordic countries, the moguls tour has now moved to France, where another pair of moguls and dual moguls competitions is scheduled to go down this weekend on Friday and Saturday, December 17-18 at the brand new World Cup venue in Alpe d’Huez.
Home to the legendary stage in the Tour de France, where cyclists set off to take on 1000m of elevation and a gruelling ride up the iconic 21 harpoon bends, Alpe d’Huez is also well-known for its sun facing and perfectly groomed slopes. Located on a plateau at 1860 meters above the sea level the resort boast over 250 km of runs that interconnect nearby villages with over 2200 meters of elevation.
And with a long history in ski cross, Alpe d’Huez has now reconnected with freestyle skiing, taking a new approach and developing mogul skiing in the region. Already last season the resort provided the course that served as a training ground for the French team during the winter season and this year Alpe d’Huez is ready to take it to another level with the first World Cup event set to go down on the sunny slope of the “Signal” ski run. And since the course is one of the steepest on the entire tour with some really deep and irregular bumps, we’re really excited to see what’s to come in the next two days of World Cup action.
Jakarta Anthony and Mikael Kingsbury lead the way after first qualification rounds
Thursday saw the first round of qualifications to go down in Alpe d’Huez, with women competing for top-16 spots in Saturday’s Dual Moguls events, while men were trying to make the cut into Friday’s Moguls competition.
In the women’s event Jakara Anthony (AUS) finished ahead of Perrine Laffont (FRA) and Anri Kawamura (JPN), while over in the men’s part of Thursday’s competition it was Mikael Kingsbury (CAN), who led the field ahead of Ikuma Horishima (JPN) and Pavel Kolmakov (KAZ).
When looking for favourites it’s good to look at the current World Cup standing, as we’re already three competitions into 2021/22. And while in both women’s and men’s competitions top-3 qualifiers represent top-3 athletes in the overall moguls standing, there is definitely a handful of athletes to watch out for this weekend.
In the women’s event definitely watch out for the US squad with Olivia Giaccio, Kai Owens, Tess Johnson, Hannah Soar and Jaelin Kauf sitting in the respective fifth, sixth, seventh, eight and 11th spot in the ranking, and it’s more than obvious that those ladies will be looking to make some noise in France this weekend.
Then let’s not forget about Rino Yanagimoto (JPN), who is having a breakout season so far and is sitting just behind our afore-mentioned top-3 in the overall standing after a couple of solid results in 2021/22.
Yulia Galysheva (KAZ), Anastasiya Smirnova (RUS), Britteny Cox (AUS), or Justine Dufour-Lapointe (CAN) are just few of those, who could also contend for a spot on the podium on a good day, but generally the women’s top field has been pretty deep lately… And while it was hard to make any predictions in the last weeks, it was also very exciting to witness all those new guns storming to some great results in Ruka as well as in Idre.
Moving over to the men’s part of the competition in Alpe d’Huez, besides our top trio of Kingsbury, Horishima and Kolmakov, also keep an eye on the likes of the veterans Ludvig Fjallstrom (SWE), Benjamin Cavet (FRA), Bradley Wilson (USA), or Daichi Hara (JPN).
Then let’s not forget about younger riders, who have been on fire lately with the likes of Albin Holmgren or Oskar Elofsson riding for Sweden, Nikita Andreev and Nikita Novitskii dropping it for Russia, and Nick Page and Andy McDonald ripping for Team USA.
All in all also the men’s portion of the event in Alpe d’Huez also shapes up to be a thrilling one and we can’t wait to enjoy some fast skiing and big tricks under the French sun.
WATCH LIVE
Friday
Eurosport 1 (Asia), Eurosport 2 (Europe), CBC Streaming (Canada), CT Sport Web (Czech Republic), V Sport 1 (Finland), L’Equipe (France), Arena (Hungary), ESPN Star+ (Latin America), V Sport + (Norway), Streaming on https://skiandsnowboard.live/ (USA), FIS Freestyle Youtube channel
Saturday
Eurosport 1 (Asia), Eurosport 2 (Europe), CBC Streaming (Canada), CT Sport Web (Czech Republic), Viaplay (Denmark), V Sport 1 (Finland), L’Equipe (France), Arena (Hungary), Sports 2 (Japan), ESPN Star+ (Latin America), V Sport Hockey (Sweden), Streaming on https://skiandsnowboard.live/ (USA), FIS Freestyle Youtube channel
QUICK LINKS
Alpe d'Huez World Cup FIS data page (start lists, results, etc.)
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