The world's best freeskiers in Cardona Alpine Resort for World Cup slopestyle

The world’s best freeskiers were in action at Cardrona Alpine Resort for the World Cup slopestyle of the Audi quattro Winter Games NZ, including Aussies Russ Henshaw and Ryley Lucas.

Defending Winter Games Freeski Slopestyle Champion James Woods (GBR) claimed the win in the men’s field and Kelly Sildaru (EST) in the women’s.

With World Cup medals and Olympic qualifying points up for grabs the competitors came ready to throw down a full bag of tricks and nothing much short of perfection would earn a place on the podium.

Unfortunately for Henshaw and Lucas, their runs came up short of qualifying them for the finals. Lucas came 59th with a score of 40.66 and Henshaw 34th with a score of 73.66 though wasn’t enough to touch the top riders with scores starting in the 90s.

“I struggled through training  the last two days, I tweaked my back the first day that I arrived which isn’t ideal, so for me I was stoked just to put one down after how everything went” Henshaw said.

All eyes were on 15-year-old Kelly Sildaru to push the level of competition in the women’s field and she didn’t disappoint. The two-time Winter X-Games gold medallist kept suspense levels high, saving her best performance for last and taking her whole rail section to a next level of difficulty and nailing the jump line with a switch left 1080 on the final hit.

“Yesterday I didn’t land my first run but today I landed both my runs and so I’m really happy,” said Sildaru.

“I just thought about how I did it in qualies, that worked out pretty well, so I was thinking just do it the exact same and I did!”

See the highlights from the qualification day

See the results here

The snowboard slopestyle event begins Sunday 3 September with finals Monday 4 September 2017.

Alexandra Rouse
Ski & Snowboard Australia

Video: Russ Henshaw training at Perisher recently