Zoe Atkin and Alex Ferreira win on windy Copper morning

The conditions were tricky as the wind was gusting and the light was flat—but would you expect anything less from a Copper World Cup? The weather meant that some of the riders dialled back their runs, while some risked making errors going for broke, but it was experience that would prevail. 

The Women

There is some exciting new talent in the women’s field with the likes of Mischa Thomas and Indra Brown both impressing in the first few World Cup starts. Indra would finish in second place, improving on her third place finish last week in China, making it two podiums from two World Cup starts. The 15-year-old has a big bag of tricks and was able to do them at amplitude. She linked back-to-back cork 900s and a switch 540 into a switch 720 combination. If she can clean up the run and hang onto her grabs, she is going to compete for the top step of the podium very soon.

Kexin Zhang would take third place with a run packed with four switch hits. It was her grabs and possibly the lack of amplitude that stopped her scoring any higher.

Six years after winning her first World Cup in the same halfpipe, Zoe Atkin only needed one run to once again take the win in Copper. Her amplitude, variety of grabs and spin directions—as well as both way switch 720s—make her very difficult to beat in this field. It was not the cleanest Zoe has done her run but it would be more than enough to take a comfortable win and give her the first victory lap of the year.

“I was 16 when I first won a World Cup here, so to come back six years later and stand on the top of the podium again—and in an Olympic season—it just means so much to me. I’m super stoked.” Zoe said after the final.

The Men

Somehow the men seemed to have the worst of the conditions with small delays as riders tried to wait out the worst of the gusting wind. With the mind-blowingly high level of men’s halfpipe at the moment—and the difficult conditions—there were a lot of mistakes that kept people from challenging the eventual winners. 

Having qualified in first, and spent almost all of the second runs staring down his first World Cup win, Hunter Hess would have to settle for second place. He has stepped his run up from previous years, adding in a super stylish tweaked reverse mute to his right double cork 1260. However, having been bumped into second, he was unable to rip the mute on the final run of the day and was beaten to first place by the epitome of consistency, Alex Ferreira.

Alex could probably put this run down blindfolded if he had to. He starts with switch right double cork 1080 japan into left double 1260 mute to right cork 1080 lead tail to switch left double 1080 japan and finishing with a chilled right double cork 1260 mute. It is frightening that this is effectively Alex’s safety run to pull out when the conditions aren’t great.

“It’s really difficult because it’s a lot of wind, it’s scary, it’s flat light. I don’t know, I just keep telling myself over and over again, ‘I can do this, I can do this, I can do this’. Then I go out and do it,” said Ferreira who has now one three consecutive contests at Copper.

The next halfpipe contest takes place at the Snow Rodeo in Calgary under the lights at the start of the new year.