Kirsty Muir and Troy Podmilsak win their first World Cup Big Airs

The Women

Having been dragged forward a day due to incoming high winds, the women kicked off the first FIS World Cup final of the year after—unsurprisingly—Stubai was blown out last week. In her first World Cup appearance, Canadian Naomi Urness showed no signs of nerves as she calmly put down a perfect right double cork 1080 safety to get the ball rolling. Naomi would revert on her second run but finished in second place after stomping a switch right bio 1080 mute to score 82.75.

Sarah Hoefflin took a horrible crash on her first hit and stayed down for a long time while the medical team went to work. Sarah said she was feeling really ill this morning and shouldn’t have competed, but after being released from hospital said that she is doing fine and had only strained some muscles and should make a quick recovery—although maybe not quick enough to compete in Beijing.

After a long wait Mengting Liu landed a left double cork 1260 safety which she would clean up in her third run for an 85.00. Paired with a right double cork 1080 she would squeeze into third place just half a point below the rookie Urness.

Daisy Thomas and Guila Tanno were unable to put down two fully clean hits but did the two stand out double cork 10s of the day with a tail grab and an indy truck respectively. 

Providing the two highlights of the morning, and taking the win, Kirsty Muir stomped a fairly flawless left double cork 1440 safety and an insanely stylish right double cork 1080 tweaked mute—she grabbed it and laid into it, almost JP Auclair style. Kirsty finished head and shoulders above the rest of the field, taking her first ever World Cup Big Air win—a great start to an Olympic year.

The Men

Getting their first run out of the season, having not even skied beyond training in Stubai, the men’s final was characterized by small errors with only the top two finishers managing to put down fully clean A and B tricks.

Dylan Deschamps was the first to jump into the 90s with a really sick switch right triple misty 16 safety—really cool to see this axis make a comeback. Dylan would finish in second place adding a clean left triple cork 18 high mute for a combined score of 178.50.

Continuing in the same vein as last year, Luca Harrington went for his signature switch right triple cork 1800 esco. Unlike last year though he booted the second hand of the grab on his first hit and was docked accordingly by the eagle-eyed judges. He got more fingers around the ski on the second hit and added a right triple cork 1980 tweaked safety to land himself on the last step of the podium. 

If the contest was judged on how stoked the riders were with their performance, Max Moffat would’ve taken the W. Having wrestled with it the first try, he laced a opp carve right double bio 1440 bring-back 1260 japan, he was mad stoked and deservedly so, but the length of grab probably limited his score.

Other highlights included Tormod Frostad stepping up his switch right tail butter double bio 1440 by adding an indie truck to it. The judges agree this is still one of the dopest tricks in the field and despite maybe not having the best amplitude was hooked up with 90.50.

Unfortunately for the baguette loving massive, Matias Roche was unable to find the grab his outrageous nose butter triple cork 1980. Matias said he was feeling super tired having been unable to sleep the night before. Hopefully with a better night sleep we can see the Val Thorens local put down his tricks clean and trouble the podium.

Backcountry jump badass Mac Forehand did a signature switch left triple 1980 high mute, but was harshed by the judges on the landing and the short grab of his left nose butter double cork 1980 stalefish—a trick he only learnt in training. He would end up in fourth place.

It was Troy Podmilsak who stole the day though with two super clean, super technical tricks taking his first ever World Cup Big Air win. Proving my theory from the preview article completely wrong, Troy kept it “simple” stomping a right triple cork 1980 safety and his left triple cork 2160 mute—no butters, no pull-backs, no special sauce—just good old fashioned spin to win. Asked why Troy took the win, one judge laughed, “He just spun more!” which was obviously a joke from one of the most core centric, style focused judges on the scene. He went onto explain that Troy made a case difficult to argue against with two of the cleanest, most technical tricks of the day, with no execution errors.

The Big Airs come thick and fast with the next World Cup going down next week in Beijing.