Tess Ledeux wins twice in Aspen and Alex Hall gets redemption

FIS do not have a good track record of sensible, resourcefully minded decision-making but the decision to hold a World Cup immediately after X Games, on the same course is a very good one. Why waste the best slopestyle course on the planet, with all the riders and coaches already in town? It also gave us and the riders a rerun of the contest, without the crowds, without an excitable Tom Wallisch on the mic and without the fanfare – this time it was all about the hallowed FIS points. 

The Women

On the women’s side of things especially, runs were copy and pasted from last week’s X Games straight into this week’s World Cup. What was interesting from a judging perspective is how these runs would compare using a different judging system. For the X Games they use Overall Impression judging and for the World Cup they use Section by Section judges. With a lot of identical runs being directly compared, it was interesting to see how the two methods would compare and whether they would achieve the same result.

Run One

The light was fairly flat, causing some issues with lots of the riders making errors. Returning from knee and elbow surgery, Kirtsy Muir was back in a bib and putting down an almost clean run like she had never left. It is clear she is still warming up into the contest scene, but it is great to see her back. 

Muriel Mohr’s switch left bio 900 tail was perfect but she went too big on a double 1080, overrotating and washing the landing. Anni Karava then tried to give us a carbon-copy of her X Games run, which secured her a bronze medal, but slipped off a rail early.

The first real landed run came from Canadian, Megan Oldham, who missed the podium while going for broke last weekend. She laced her run, with two doubles – a left double cork 1080 japan and a switch left double cork 900 safety and took a big lead. Rell Harwood stomped her left double cork 1260 safety on the Money Booter – if it is still called that – but had an early off on the rainbow rail. With plenty of other mistakes in the field, Rell’s run was still good enough for second place.

Tess Ledeux then made us check whether we were watching the correct stream by replicating her X Games gold medal run to the “T’. Switch left 270 continuing 270, to right double cork 1080 safety, straight into her left double cork 1260 mute, then stomping a switch right 900 safety with her hands in the air – an 88.60 and a commanding lead.

Run Two

Muriel was overjoyed to jump into third after linking back-to-back front and back 450 off the rails and landing her double cork 1080 clean. However, it was short lived as Anni immediately overtook her, cleaning up her X Games bronze medal run. At this point it was starting to look like the judging systems perfectly align – bad news for the haters.

Megan then upped her run including a left 450 continuing 270 and mixing up her grabs on the jumps. She improved her score but stayed in second place just below Tess.

Rell was left outside the podium with everything to play for. She greased her run but it was only enough to bump Anni off the podium. Anni’s switch bio 900 blunt was not as perfect as she had been doing it all of last week, the grab was slightly short and this hurt her score. This left Tess with the second win on this course within a week and a second victory lap. Clearly some time away has paid off.

The Men

If the women’s contest was confusingly similar to the X Games, the men’s saw a very different outcome. That being said, judging by the men who made it through to finals, those who were honoured with an X Games invite had a slight advantage over those with just two days of training. 

Run One

The light also caused some issues with the guys, with lots of early runs being thrown away. In the gloom, Konnor Ralph managed to pull around a triple cork 1800 mute on the final jump to put himself into first place, having landed back-to-back double 1620s on the previous two jumps.

Alex Hall had a disappointing time during the X Games slopestyle, unable to land a clean run to make it through the “play offs” but a week later in Aspen he was able to put it down. There is no wonder why it has taken him over a week to grease it – he started with a back swap transfer from one rail to another to back 270, then lip 270 pretzel 450 on the goal post rail and then, with feet faster than Messi, did a switch 270 tap back swap continuing front 450 on the rainbow tube. He backed this insane rail line up with impressive jumps including a switch right tail butter double 900 bringback to 720 and scored a massive 88.21.

Birk Rudd, winner in Laax, also stomped his run which included a right 450 transfer onto the rainbow rail pretzel 270 and left double cork 1800 blunt at the bottom – it was good enough for second. Andri Ragettli went into third with an almost identical run to last week – his consistency is mindblowing – however his switch blender 1260 was not good enough to push him up any further.

Having won in Stubai, Colby Stevenson dropped last and transferred onto the rainbow tube with a rodeo 450 on continuing 270 – he locked on perfectly and followed it up with left and right switch 1440s. He would have put himself in podium contention had he not fumbled the mute grab on the first 1440 leaving – Alex, Birk and Andri in the top spots going into run two.

Run Two

Max Moffat has a serious slopestyle run hidden away somewhere in his back pocket, however, he is missing just a little bit of consistency when it really matters. A great first run was foiled as he missed his take-off and therefore his grab on a switch triple and on run two he reverted on the rails. Hopefully we will see him lacing more runs in the future. 

Having dropped both of his runs in X Games, Evan McEachran finally landed one of the most technical runs out there. He does both ways 360 switch-ups on the rails and then finishes with both ways switch 1800s. However a very short grab on the last 1800 hurt his score and kept him off the podium in fifth.

The rest of run two saw lots of errors and riders unable to improve. A-Hall messed up his run and would have to wait nervously at the bottom for a lot of the heavy hitters to take their runs. Birk, Fabian Boesch, X Games winner Luca Harrington and Andri all bobbled or crashed leaving only Mac Forehand and Colby able to shake up the podium. 

To add to A-Halls nerves the sun started poking through drastically improving conditions. Mac Forehand could not capitalize, sketching on a rail and then admitting to having to improvise his whole run – fairly impressively as well – but would end up mid table.

Colby, final rider to drop and sitting in fourth, started with some of the most fire rails you can imagine. A disaster right 450  pretzel 270, to switch left 270 back swap front 450 on the goal post and his rodeo 450 continuing 270 on the rainbow. His jumps were equally bananas stepping them up from run one – left nose butter double cork 1620 lead japan, switch right 1440 mute ending with switch left double cork 1800 lead tail. The replays however showed that, once again, he had fumbled to get the mute grab on the switch 14. Even with three different section scores in the 90s, Colby couldn’t overtake A-Hall, scoring a 87.15 meaning Alex had survived and taken his first World Cup win of the season.

If the World Cup looked like a cheap knock-off of the X Games, Alex Hall’s run was the real deal and he made up for a disappointing X Games slopestyle performance. It was brilliant to see these riders get a second bite at the cherry on this course and even without excited fans and the sometimes nauseatingly enthusiastic presenters, the skiers put on a show, letting the riding speak for itself.