Calgary (AB), Canada – The sole double event of the 2011 LG Snowboard FIS World Cup season takes place this Saturday at Canada Olympic Park, just a view minutes outside of downtown Calgary, when the season’s first slopestyle and fourth halfpipe contests are to be staged.nThis is the second time that the main venue of the 1988 Olympic Winter Games will host a double World Cup following last year’s first ever “Snowboard Saturday.” An estimated 80 riders from 13 countries are on the start list of history’s sixth World Cup stop to be held in Calgary.
The focus will be on the close battle between Japan’s Ryo Aono and Australian rider Nathan Johnstone for the Halfpipe World Cup title. Currently Aono, the 2009 World Champion, holds the lead with 1,800 points as Johnstone, the reigning World Cup title holder, breathes down his neck in second place with 1,250 points. Johnstone, however, missed his mandatory straight air before crossing the red line in last week’s finals at Stoneham in Quebec, losing some precious points in the race for the coveted Crystal Globe.
“I have to work on this and I hope I do better in Calgary,” Johnstone acknowledges.
In the women’s field, China’s Xuetong Cai sits on top going into Calgary. After having won two halfpipe competitions and placing second in a third event, the 17-year-old rider has earned 2,800 points. Australia’s Holly Crawford, the reigning World Champion, follows as runner-up 1,500 points behind, and with three halfpipe contests remaining this season it will be tough for her to catch Cai.
In the first slopestyle of the season, Canada has a good chance to repeat last year’s three podium finishes by sending the biggest numbers of riders to Saturday’s contest. Although this year’s slopestyle silver medalist at the X Games, Mark McMorris, won’t be in Calgary this weekend to defend his title from last winter, the maple leaves still have top boarders to enter the show as Julien Beaulieu and Robby Balharry finished sixth and seventh in the first ever World Championships slopestyle competition in La Molina, Spain, at the end of January. Austria’s Clemens Schattschneider and Michael Macho, who also did well in Spain by finally placing fifth and ninth at the last Worlds, will be among their rivals for the podium.