Cai earns third career gold while Lee makes history in Bakuriani 2023 halfpipe
Mar 03, 2023·Snowboard Park & Pipe
Halfpipe finals at the Bakuriani 2023 FIS Freestyle Ski, Snowboard and Freeski World Championships took to Bakuriani’s Didveli Resort on Friday, where China’s Cai Xuetong took home the third World Championships gold medal of her career in the women’s competition, while Korea’s Chaeun Lee became the youngest men’s FIS Snowboard World Champion of all time and the first ever Korean World Champion in any discipline with a storming final run.
While the Bakuriani pipe was perfectly cut, allowing for some of the biggest and most consistent amplitude we’ve ever seen throughout both the women’s and men’s competitions, warm temperatures meant that the flatbottom of the pipe was soft in some places, requiring near-perfect edging between hits to ensure clean runs. However, those who were able to run true from wall to wall showcase some remarkable riding.
CAI EARNS CAREER THIRD WORLD TITLE
While it has been six years since she last stood atop the World Championships, China’s Cai Xuetong has remained amongst the halfpipe world’s elite during that period, earning the halfpipe crystal globe in 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2021/22, while also taking the Park & Pipe overall globe in 2019/20 to bring her career globe total to 10 - second-most of all time.
On Friday in Bakuriani the 29-year-old Cai was once again on top of her game, stomping a first run that would stand up to all challengers over the course of the morning.
Leading off her run with a huge frontside 900 tuck knee, Cai would then go into a backside 540 Weddle, then a massive air-to-fakie melon, into a switch frontside 720 tail grab, before finishing it all off with a super stylish alley-oop backside rodeo 540 melon and riding out clean for a score of 90.50 and Bakuriani 2023 gold.
The silver medal would go to Elizabeth Hosking (CAN), as the 21-year-old became the first Canadian woman ever to hit the halfpipe World Championships podium with her 85.50-scoring first run.
With the biggest top-to-bottom amplitude of any in the women’s finals, Hosking’s run began with a backside 540 Weddle grab, into a massive frontside 720 where she just tickled the melon grab, into a switch crippler with a frontside grab, then a corked frontside 540 frontside grab, before finish it all off with an alley-oop frontside 540 frontside grab.
Third place and the bronze medal belonged to Mitsuki Ono of Japan, as the top qualifier from Wednesday came through with a second run that started off with a switch frontside 720 frontside grab, into a frontside 540 tail grab, then a backside 540 Weddle, then a frontside 720 frontside grab, and finally a switch frontside 900 melon to end it with a bang and earn Japan’s first women’s halfpipe World Championships medal since 2017.
LEE BECOMES FIRST KOREAN FIS WORLD CHAMPION, YOUNGEST FIS SNOWBOARD WORLD CHAMPION
Over on the men’s side of things it was 16-year-old Chaeun Lee facing down a stacked field of the world’s finest and walking away as the new halfpipe gold medallist as well as the youngest World Champion in the history of FIS Snowboard, eclipsing the mark set by Ross Powers (USA) at the Lienz 1996 World Championships by 22 days.
Not only that, and perhaps an even bigger story, is the fact that Lee also became the first ever Korean FIS World Champion in any discipline
The reigning halfpipe Junior World Champion and big air JWC bronze medallist (and a strong slopestyle competitor, to boot), Lee has been on the cusp of breaking through at snowboarding’s most elite level throughout his rookie campaign this year, earning a spot in finals at every World Cup in 2022/23 and finishing just off the podium in fourth two times.
On Friday in Bakuriani that breakthrough finally came on the grandest stage of the season with Lee’s explosive third and final run.
Leading off with a massive frontside double cork 1440 frontside grab, Lee then launched straight into the switch stance version of the same trick, following that cab 1440 up with a frontside double 1260 frontside grab, then a backside double cork 1260 Indy, before capping it off with a frontside 900 melon.
The run would earn Lee a score of 93.50, but with riders like reigning World Champion Yuto Totsuka (JPN), three-time World Champion Scotty James (AUS) and World Cup crystal globe winner Ruka Hirano (JPN) all set to drop after him, it would be nervous times indeed for the young ripper as he watched the scores come in.
As it turned out, the strongest challenge of the day came from another teenage all-around wrecking machine, as 17-year-old Valentino Guseli stomped a third run that had many at the Bakuriani venue thinking a change atop the leaderboard was imminent.
Guseli kicked things off with a massive switch backside air, before launching what may have been the first ever cab triple cork 1440 landed in competition - although there is some debate about whether the third cork was a separate dip or a continuation of the second cork’s trajectory.
Nonetheless, it was a stomped switch frontside 1440, which Guseli followed up with a frontside 1260 tail grab, into a backside 1260 Weddle, before capping it all off with a frontside 1440 tail grab. When the scores came in, Guseli would earn a 93.00 - falling just half a point short of Lee’s winning mark.
Guseli’s silver medal performance was just one more achievement in an absolutely unprecedented 2022/23 season for the Australian, in which he has won the big air World Cup crystal globe, become the first rider in World Cup history to podium in all three of big air, slopestyle and halfpipe in a single season, earned his first X Games podium in the halfpipe, and is guaranteed to also walk away with the Park & Pipe overall globe at the end of the season in Silvaplana.
It’s a level of all-around competition mastery the likes of which we haven’t seen in snowboarding since Shaun White’s heyday, and we’re all lucky to bear witness to it.
Rounding out the men’s podium in third place for the bronze medal was Beijing 2022 Olympic bronze medallist Jan Scherrer of Switzerland, who lead for the majority of the competition after stomping a stand-out first run that showcased the best of his unique approach to halfpipe riding.
Kickjing things off with a backside 900 double shifty, Scherrer then went with a frontside double cork 1440 frontside grab on hit two, into a switch frontside double cork 1080 Weddle, then an air-to-faking fresh fish, before ending his run with what might have been the trick of the day - a switch alley-oop double backside rodeo nose grab.
Scherrer would earn a score of 89.25 for his efforts and his second-straight World Championships bronze medal, as well as a whole lot of love from the Bakuriani 2023 crowd and those watching at home.
QUICK LINKS
