PREVIEW: Star-studded snowboard field at Big Air Chur 2024 FIS World Cup opener

Oct 18, 2024·Snowboard Park & Pipe

Training ahead of the Big Air Chur 2024 FIS Snowboard World Cup © Buchholz / @fisparkandpipe

Big names from the snowboard world are set to hit the big air jump at Chur for the start of the 2024/25 FIS Snowboard big air World Cup season this weekend.

Olympic champions, World Champions and World Cup crystal globe winners are part of the 80-strong field of riders competing at the Big Air Chur 2024 festival on Saturday, where finals are set to go down at 20:00 CET.

This season’s festival - which began on Friday with freeski big air - is the fourth time Chur has hosted the opening weekend of the FIS Freeski and Snowboard World Cup big air season.

Competition on Saturday will begin with the women’s qualification round at 9:00 CET, led by the overall 2023/24 FIS big air World Cup winner Kokomo Murase (JPN).

Since winning a winter X Games gold medal at age 13 in 2018, Murase has gone from strength to strength throughout her career, including bronze at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games and two crystal globes wins last season, in slopestyle and Park & Pipe overall. Murase also won Big Air Chur in 2021.

This year Murase is joined by her younger sister Yura, who won gold in big air at the Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games, as well as compatriots Mari Fukada, Miyabi Onitsuka and Big Air Chur 2023 runner-up Reira Iwabuchi.

The women’s field of 30 snowboarders also includes two-time Olympic Winter Games big air gold medallist Anna Gasser (AUT) and last season’s big air crystal globe winner Mia Brookes of Great Britain, who finished third behind Iwabuchi at Chur last year.

The men’s qualifications on Saturday will begin at 11:25 CET with a field of 50 men led by last season’s big air crystal globe winner Kira Kimura (JPN). Kimura finished second at Big Air Chur 2023 behind compatriot Hiroto Ogiwara, his top result in an impressively consistent 2023/24 campaign that saw him land atop the standings by season’s end.

Kimura and Ogiwara will be joined by a further six Japanese riders, including four-way 1800 pioneer, 2024 X Games winner and 2023 big air World Champion Taiga Hasegawa, as well as 19-year-old Yuto Miyamura, one of the few riders with consistent 1980s in his trick arsenal.

Other strong contenders in the men’s event include 2022 big air crystal globe winner Valentino Guseli (AUS) and Norway’s Marcus Kleveland, a three-time X Games big air gold medallist who is undisputedly recognised as one of his generation’s most gifted riders.

In between the morning qualifications and evening finals, Saturday’s competitors will also share the spotlight with Swiss musical acts Happy For Real, 77 Bombay Street, and Nemo. Vienna group Wanda and headline act Paul Kalkbranner from Berlin will wrap up the weekend’s festivities.

Big Air Chur 2024 programme © First Event AG

FACTS & FIGURES

30 women from 19 countries
50 men from 25 countries
Anna Gasser (AUT) has amassed 18 World Cup podium finishes in big air, including nine wins
Gasser’s closest World Cup rival, Reira Iwabuchi (JPN), has seven wins out of nine podium finishes
Miyabi Onitsuka (JPN) has also amassed nine podium finishes
USA’s Chris Corning has 10 World Cup big air podium finishes, including four wins