Halfpipe sensations dominate Laax semis

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US snowboarding wonder Chloe Kim (USA) as well as reigning Olympic champion Iouri Podladtchikov (SUI) have lived up to the expectations bringing down the best runs in today's halfpipe semis of the LAAX OPEN 2017.

In the two run, best one count format, Kim - who had already nailed it in her first run - didn't think of taking it easy at Europe's most prestigious snowboard event bringing down a flawless masterpiece of snowboard art consisting in her second run:

Method to frontside 1080 tail, cab 540 melon, switch backside 540 mute and a cab 720 melon to finish things off.

This magic and jaw-dropping moment brought the 15-year-old goofy rider the almost perfect score of 98.25 setting the bar high for the women's finals which will also feature the likes of US riders Kelly Clark and Arielle Gold, Xuetong Cai and Jiayu Liu from China as well as Queralt Castellet (ESP) who will be the only one representing Europe.

iPod in his element - pipe time

In the men's event, local favourite Iouri Podladtchikov underlined why he calls the legendary superpipe at Crap Sogn Gion his living room.

90.75 for his method to frontside 900 tail, backside 90 mute, frontside double cork 1080, cab double cork 1080 and an alley oop 540 made him the last man to drop in in the men's finals which will also see the Russian born Swiss athlete's teammates Jan Scherrer and Patrick Burgener as well as Markus Malin (FIN), Yiwei Zhang (CHN), reigning world champion Scotty James (AUS) and a US armada of six:

Jake Pates, Ben and Gabe Ferguson, Matthew Ladley, Chase Josey as well as Greg Bretz.

Finals will take place on Saturday, January 21, at 1:45 PM CET and streamed live on the event's homepage.

However, the LAAX OPEN 2017 continue with the slopestyle finals tomorrow at 12:45 PM CET – also live online.