Lake Wanaka, New Zealand – American rider Kelly Clark took the women’s title while Japan’s Ryo Aono blitzed the men’s field with the two highest scores of the day at the FIS Snowboard Halfpipe World Cup season opener on Sunday at Cardrona Alpine Resort in New Zealand.
A field of twelve men and six women — including some of the world’s best riders — competed in a two-run final with men and women alternating runs. After fresh snow fell overnight,winds gusted across the 22-foot pipe.
Aono set the bar high, scoring 92.75 on his first run to give him the confidence to push harder on the second and execute a new trick, a backside 12. Aono’s second run demonstrated great technical ability with a blistering 95.25-point performance which included an air to fakie tail, followed by a cab 10 lean, into a frontside 9, backside 12 and finishing with a frontside 10 to take his ninth World Cup victory.
“The competition went really well for me today; I am so excited to win. We have a strong Japanese halfpipe team and we are looking forward to the rest of the 2012 season,” said Aono.
Competing in his first World Cup event, Japan’s Shuhei Sato recovered well from a fall in his first run and took second place with a score of 88.5. Yiwei Zhang of China placed third with 84.00 points despite riding with a hand broken only five days earlier in a training run.
Matt Hadley, of Chicago, Ill. finished fourth for the best U.S. male result, while Seabrook, N.H.’s Scotty Lago was sixth.
The women’s competition was tight with the wind playing a bigger role for the lighter riders. After not landing her first run of the finals, the pressure was on Clark to perform on the second. She pulled out a frontside 7 indy, cab 7 mute, frontside air, backside 5 mute and finished with a front 5 Japan to receive the winning score of 83.0. France’s Sophie Rodriguez took second place with 81.75 points and Queralt Castellet of Spain finished third with 71.75 points.
“It was a great competition today, the pipe is the best it has been,” said Clark, of West Dover, Vt., who earned her tenth World Cup podium out of her last 12 starts on Sunday in New Zealand. “Not completing my first run provides a good opportunity to come from behind, I enjoyed this and happy to be on top of the podium as the girls are riding great at the moment and really pushing the boundaries.
“Falling in the first run is never ideal but I tried to look at it as an opportunity. That’s exactly what can happen in major events. So it’s good to get used to it and this kind of pressure,” Clark added.
Vermont’s Hannah Teter finished just off the podium in fourth. Kaitlyn Farrington, of Bellevue, Wash., was 14th.
Head judge Brandon Wong was really impressed with the level of competition on Sunday. “Being a new pipe to the riders their confidence definitely grew as the competition progressed. There was some strong riding to negate the effects of the wind, Ryo’s amplitude was well above the rest and pleased he managed to throw in a new trick,” he said.