Tabanelli siblings take top spots in Tignes World Cup Big Air

The Women

The women’s Crystal Globe had already been decided with Flora Tabanelli sitting out in the front with an unassailable lead – but with the last World Cup of the year up for grabs the ladies sent it in a bid to end the FIS season on a high.

Kirsty Muir lit the touch paper in run one, landing a perfect left double cork 1260 safety as if she has not just had the best part of a year off skiing with injury. She struggled to land her two following runs clean enough to trouble the top spots but it is fantastic to see her back to her best. 

Flora took an early lead landing a new trick for her – a switch left double cork 1080 safety. She took it deep and grabbed harder than a Nonna on a grandchild’s cheek and got rewarded with a 92.75.

Fuelled on enough Kronenbourg to drown a whale, the Savoyarde crowd went ballistic when local hero Tess Ledeux stomped a textbook left double cork 1260 mute to take control of proceedings with a 94.00.

It would end in tears for the rider from La Plagne though, who took a horrible looking slam on run three, being thrown over the handle bars after landing. The medical team was quickly on hand and Tess was stretchered away to nervous applause from the crowd. Tess has since taken to social media to let fans know that despite hitting her head hard, everything is okay and thankfully nothing serious is wrong. She had landed her second run – a right double cork 1080 safety – which was enough to secure her second place at the end of the night.

Anni Karava would steeze her way to the third step of the podium landing her signature switch left 1080 lead tail and a left double cork 1080 mute – the most beautiful double 1080 rotation of the night.

Rell Harwood also put herself in contention for the podium after stomping her left double cork 1260 mute – she does this with a wobble style axis which the judges love to see. For her second trick however she was let down by a short grab on a switch bio 1080 japan, which kept her off the podium.

It was Flora’s left double cork 1260 mute however that scored the highest of the night. Her axis and grab both oozed style and she rode out of the transition like Wallisch circa 2012 X Games and rightly got hooked up by the judges. With the Crystal Globe secured and second outright big air win of the season in the bag, Flora did a cork 360 for her victory lap, embracing the Italian coaches in the landing area. Flora has podiumed every World Cup big air this year in a show of outrageous consistency and has only gone from strength to strength – could she finish her breakout year as World Champion in Switzerland?

Final women’s podium: Flora Tabanelli in first place, Tess Ledeux in second place and Anni Karava in third.

The Men

With Matej Svancer failing to qualify for finals, Luca Harrington had already all but bagged the Crystal Globe, only needing a fair result to be booking extra baggage onto his flight back to New Zealand. He did better than fairly though, landing a never been done in contest – a switch right triple cork 1800 esco grab – all the way to the bottom of the landing. He backed this up with a right triple cork 1980 tweaked safety, scoring two scores in the nineties which was good enough for third place.

Alex Hall also unleashed something new under the lights, carving hard to the left up the jump and then tokyo drifting his feet over to the right side on take-off into a double cork 1260 safety – pretty terrifying. He was unable to grab enough ski on his following two jumps to make it near the podium but it is always exciting to see something new out of the Faction rider.

Mac Forehand and Troy Podmilsak both did triple cork 1800 mutes, switch and regular respectively and both scored in the mid to low nineties. Both grabs were ripped and everything about the tricks was flawless. Troy would eventually clean up his Berco flip lock trick that has been slowly garnering diminishing returns over the season, however the combination was enough to give him fourth place on the night.

The moment of the night came in run one as local rider Matias Roche dropped in and stomped a carved left nose butter triple cork 1620 safety. To say that the crowd went insane would be doing them a huge injustice. From the moment Matou’s name appeared on the screen at the top of the in run, women were screaming and falling to their knees, friends were waving banners like airport ground crew at a rave and the noise was tripping decibel metres in nearby Val D’isere. When he stomped, people were physically throwing themselves over the barriers to try to celebrate with Matias, there were genuine tears and one trigger happy young man with a chainsaw was revving the engine for so long that he must have been close to giving himself carbon monoxide poisoning.

Matias landed his third run and would finish in seventh – an incredible finish in his first ever World Cup final considering it was only last season that he was sleeping in his car the night before European Cup contests because he was not associated with a team or coach and could not afford accommodation.

Elias Syrja also did a nose butter 1620 safety, only doing the double flip variation and scoring just below Matias. He followed that with almost the directly opposite trick – a switch tail butter double bio 1260 safety. The way he rotates the butter at a different speed to the rest of the rotation makes this trick really stand out but a slight instability on the landing kept it from being scored as one of the best tricks of the day.

Mac also mirrored his first trick by doing a regular triple cork 1800 mute which scored 0.5 points less than his switch version, bumping him up and securing him second place.

Another highlight of the evening was Leo Landroe – who apparently had decided he had done everything he wanted to do for the night – and did an enormous backflip while performing an obscene gesture. He got a ripple of laughter from the well hydrated crowd and a score of 1.00 from the judges, who possibly had a sense of humour failure. 

Miro Tabanelli would come out on top after stomping his first two runs with perfection  – a left double cork 2160 stale and a switch left double cork 1980 blunt. After watching the whole field fail to better his score in run three, he took a victory lap but apparently has no chill setting. He tried to one-up his second run by taking it to 2160 but washed out in the landing. It would be Miro’s first World Cup win of his career and he was stoked to say the least: “It feels amazing. I was searching for this win for such a long time. I don’t have words for this moment.”

The result would also mean that Luca Harrington would take an historic first Crystal Globe for New Zealand, having finished the season ahead of rival Matej Svancer.

Final Men’s Podium: Miro Tabanelli in first place, Mac Forehand in second place and Luca Harrington in third.