by YoMamaRice
LAAX OPEN at Switzerland on Jan 18 was a nail biter this year with the women upping the ante and the men’s competition going off the rocker with baguettes flying everywhere!
Women’s Halfpipe
In the women’s halfpipe competition, it was great to see Gaon Choi back at LAAX after a bad injury last year during qualifiers and taking the podium with a bronze. Chloe Kim, America's darling, pulled out her cab double 1080 and a McTwist to win Gold. Maddie Mastro pulled out a front double out of thin air and placed silver, moving up from third place on her first run.
As I mentioned in my last blog on the World Cup, the new names to keep an eye on, Sara Shimizu and Rise Kudo, all made it into the finals. However, it seems the announcers did not take note from my last blog on pronouncing Asian names. Rise is not rice as in the grain you eat but pronounced Ree Zeae and Gaon is not Gay-ON but Ga-Uon.
Men’s Halfpipe
Moving on to the men’s halfpipe competition, it was a jaw-clenching excitement with electric energy you can feel in the air. Energy was intense with the men upping the ante until most of the podium athletes doing triples. As a snowmom, concerned about safety first, it is quite worrisome how high and fast these men are spinning. During the times of Shaun White, maybe doing a double was the maximum trick but now a triple and 1450 seems to be the basic to land a podium.
The men’s qualifier was run with 2 heats and top 6 in each heat was taken to the finals which, in my opinion, unfairly left out two athletes in heat 2 (Konoske Murakami and Patrick Burgener) that scored higher than the 2 athletes (Alessandro Barbieri and Chase Joey) in heat 1.
In the newcomer men, I don’t even know if I could call them men since to me, they are just babies, are Campbell Ives and Alessandro Barbieri who landed their runs in the finals and did a solid. Also to keep an eye on is Konosuke Murakami (Japan) who scored 82.50 in the qualifiers and I have personally nicknamed Konosuke the Cat since he never falls.
Cheun Lee (Korea), pronounced Che-ooon like ooo-la-la, decked pretty hard on his first run. He dropped in with full force as he always does like a warrior and decked on his first hit. He DNS'd and did not show for his second run.
The only Chinese athlete to make finals was Wang Zi Yang who placed a high score (96.25) in the qualifiers but fell both times in the finals. As usual, the Japanese dominated the pipe with the usual suspects, Yuto, Ruka and Ayumu all vying for the podium and finished with Ruka in second, Ayumu in Bronze and Yuto in 4th. Scotty James unleashed his superpower in the final run, soaring from 6th place to claim the gold with a stunning triple cork 1440 and his signature move, switch backside 1260.
Next up, the athletes will be competing in the X-Games then World Cup in Aspen where my son will be debuting!
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