Love 'em or hate 'em, it's been a crazy year for comps. Somehow, FIS have figured out a way to have the World Championships go ahead, having had to cancel them in China, move them to Canada and then finally, pull off a last minute event in Aspen. Luckily, Aspen is used to hosting the world's best comp skiers and so pulled things together. The pipe looks a bit different without the lights of X Games night events but the guys and girls were going for it, perhaps starved of chances at those all important points. There were some major speed issues in qualis a couple of days ago, but the pipe was running better for finals. There was still your traditional daytime halfpipe soft wall/hard wall contrast making things tricky, but otherwise conditions were pretty perfect. Pipe should probably just be run at night though.
Perhaps the biggest highlight of the day was seeing Kevin Rolland back in the start gate, returning from his horrendous injuries on the QP world record attempt. He took a huge crash on his first run and got back up in his indomitable style. The man is a beast.
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Highlights: Women's
- Eileen Gu. She seems unstoppable. Huge back to back 9s for 93 on her first run, setting the bar and winning from the off. Stomped all three runs with laser precision.
- Rachel Karker, both ways 9 japans with decent amplitude, a dope inverted 7 for second.
- Zoe Aitken stomping both ways switch 7s, varied grabs. Not the best amplitude but stomped her second and third runs. The technicality of her second run was enough for provisional second and her final run bumped her score even higher, but got bumped by Rachel on the last run of the day.
- Hannah Faulhaber. Slightly loose at times but very lit. Went absolutely massive on all three runs. Not the most technical but definitely Newschoolers' runs of the day.
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1st Place - Eileen Gu
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2nd Place - Rachel Karker
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3rd Place - Zoe Aitken
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Newschoolers Award - Hanna Faulhaber
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Highlights: Men's
- Nico Porteous, huge back-to-back double 16s on his first run, banking a winning score off the bat. Stepped up to five dubs for the second run, the 16s were even better, but the alleyoop dub 10 on his final switch landing ended in a hand drag.
- Simon D'Artois, crazy dub 10, set like a 12 and pulled back. Super clean run, with style only his teammate Noah B can match. Stepped it up for the final run with 5 dubs for the final run but missed a grab.
- Birk Irving. A trademark super-smooth and technical first run for provisional 3rd. Lacked some amplitude. Unfortunately crashed hard on the second run and DNS on the third. Still finished 3rd.
- Kevin Rolland back in the start gate and immediately getting bodied on the deck. Impressive to walk away from a hit like that.
- Noah Bowman, insane switch bone role, switch to switch hits and flawless style. His second run was a dub 12 away from being the most beautiful pipe run since Duncan Adams.
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1st Place - Nico Porteous
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2nd Place - Simon D'Artois
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3rd Place - Birk Irving
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