The 2024/25 contest season comes to a close in St Moritz this weekend with World Championship halfpipe and big air finals. A season full of progression, breakout performances, comebacks and rivalries – this winter had it all.
"Is he skiing or base jumping Jeff!?" - Fin Melville Ives boosted his way into finals in top spot.
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Event News
World Champs baby!
Contest season climax in St Moritz World Championships this weekend
Big Air
The big air venue is a repurposed ski jumping landing which should make for a great arena on Saturday night. The jump is massive and the feedback from the riders is that it works really well – they will be putting on a show under the lights.
Sarah Hoefflin has qualified in first place on home snow.
@fisparkandpipe
The Women
The biggest news from qualifications was that slopestyle World Champion Mathilde Gremaud failed to land her two second tricks and will miss out on finals. Another surprise came from her compatriot, Sarah Hoefflin, who on return from injury qualified in first place with switch and regular double cork 1080s.
The rest of the start list is as expected with Megan Oldham, Flora Tabanelli, Anni Karava and Olivia Asselin all making the cut.
The Men
The two men’s heats were pure fire – the level of skiing in the men’s field is outrageous. There is strength in depth and plenty of riders are only a short grab away from putting down very high scoring runs.
Birk Ruud and Luca Harrington won their heats respectively, holding nothing back. Style lords Alex Hall and Elias Syrja buttered their way into finals as well, ensuring that there will be some creativity on show.
On a charge not seen by a Frenchman since Napoleon, Matias Roche has qualified for his second elite level big air final in a row after his heroic showing in Tignes. He has come from competing in national French contests – in a bid to try and earn enough points to be awarded his ski instructors qualification – to beating the best in the world in just one season. Hopefully some sponsorship money is on the way because he sent his nose butter triple cork 1620 all the way to the parking lot – it is unlikely that parking is cheap in St Moritz.
The 21 meter table will give the guys plenty of time to throw down their biggest tricks to hopefully finish the season with a bang.
Matias runs a paragliding school with his family during the summer in order to pay for his winter season.
@fisparkandpipe
Halfpipe
The Women
Fanghui Li qualified first in front of Zoe Atkin and Rachael Karker. With Eileen Gu still absent due to injury and the constant progression of the rest of the field, the outcome is hard to call. Fanghui pipped Zoe to the Crystal Globe just a few weeks ago and her run is looking very strong. Her back-to-back switch hits – a 900 and a 720 – add a really high level of difficulty that is hard to match for the rest of the field.
Zoe’s amplitude is something to watch out for though. Her first hit of her qualification run is as big as I can remember seeing from a female rider. If she can keep it clean and maintain her amplitude all the way down the pipe she is in with a shot.
Zoe's enormous first hit.
@fisparkandpipe
The Men
Talking of amplitude, Fin Melville Ives is boosting. Having spent almost a month skiing the Laax halfpipe, dropping banger clip after banger clip, Fin seems to be peaking at the right time. He has qualified in a convincing first place having gone as big out the pipe as we have seen from him. At the start of the season Fin had the tricks to compete but was lacking in amplitude compared to the top riders. As we arrive at the end of the season it is difficult to argue that Fin is missing anything – apart from the inevitable hardware he is about to receive.
With sixteen men progressing to finals, all of the usual suspects will be throwing down for the final time this season. Will there be a continuation of the Goepper versus Ferreira rivalry or can the two young kiwis start a chapter of their own?
Engadin Big Air and Halfpipe World Championship Live Stream Information
The men’s and women’s big air finals will go off tonight 29 March at 19:30 CET.
Halfpipe finals will kick-off tomorrow 30 March at 11:00 CET.
If you have access to a VPN, you can watch live on the FIS Freestyle Skiing Youtube for free. You will need to set your VPN to Iceland, New Zealand or Australia. Or you can watch it on the FIS Live stream website by connecting from Switzerland.
Otherwise both events will be broadcast live on television across Eurosport, L’Equipe, Viaplay, Rai Sport, CBC Sports – depending on your country.