2021/22 FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup season preview
Nov 29, 2021·Freestyle
The 2021/22 FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup season is ready to get underway this weekend once again at Finland’s Ruka resort, where moguls, aerials and aerials team competitions will get the ball rolling on what is certain to be a thrilling and dramatic Olympic season.
While extensive Covid-19 safety protocols will still be in place at all venues on this season’s World Cup tour, we’re more than excited to welcome spectators back on site at our competitions, while also bringing the action to fans around the world through extensive TV broadcasts, livestream, and social media coverage. All the pieces are in place for a hugely entertaining season of FIS Freestyle action, and we can’t wait to share it with you all.
What’s new in 2021/22
2021/22 World Cup calendar will feature 11 moguls, six dual moguls, nine aerials, and three aerials mixed team competitions.
It will be the first World Cup season in which women’s and men’s dual moguls crystal globes will be awarded, along with the existing moguls and overall crystal globe award structure.
The Beijing 2022 OWG will feature competition in moguls, aerials, and also for the first time in history the aerials mixed team event will take place at the Games.
Calendar - Aerials
After the opening week in Ruka (FIN) on December 2-3 that will see both individual and team event go down under the lights, the aerials tour will remain in Finland’s primer ski resort in Ruka for the second week of back-to-back competitions there on December 10-11. With Ruka being the only aerials venue on this side of the year, once we get back to action in 2022 it’s going to be a jam-packed few months of action.
January will see the tour move to North America, with the first competition of 2022 going down at Le Relais (CAN). Located just 15 minutes outside of Quebec City, Le Relais will see World Cup action returning to its slopes for the first time since 1995. Le Relais has been a solid stop on the Nor-Am tour through the last couple of seasons, and we’re excited to see the Canadian resort rejoin the world’s premier freestyle tour after more than 25 years.
The following week, from January 12-14, it’s down to Deer Valley (USA) for the perennial season highlight at the Freestyle International, which will be the last tune-up before we head to China for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
The OWG programme will feature the aerials mixed team competition on February 10, with aerials individual qualifications coming up on February 13 and the finals following the day after on February 14.
The latter half of February will see the tour move to Russia with a pair of competitions in Yaroslavl on February 26-27. The tour will then stay on in Russia for another weekend, with a nighttime city event slated to go down on the famed Sparrow Hills area in Moscow on March 5. Finally the aerials tour will come to a close with the final individual event as we return to last season’s World Championships venue at Almaty’s Shymbulak resort (KAZ).
Calendar - Moguls
The 2021/22 moguls World Cup season will get underway at Ruka’s Battery Run on December 4 to wrap up what is always an exciting weekend of freestyle action in Finland’s Lapland region.
After that it’s over to Sweden for both moguls and dual moguls competitions on December 11-12 at Idre Fjall. Then the final competition of December will come in Alpe d’Huez (FRA), as the resort makes its World Cup debut with a pair of moguls and dual moguls events on December 17-18.
After the holiday break, the moguls tour will jump over to North America, first to Tremblant (CAN) for action from January 7-8, and then down to the USA for the annual freestyle bonanza in Deer Valley, with back-to-back moguls competitions on January 13 and 14.
After Deer Valley the moguls World Cup tour will travel back to Europe, stopping in at Italy’s Chiesa in Valmalenco for the final competition before we head to the big show at the Beijing 2022 Games. A five-time host of the FIS Junior World Ski Championships, Chiesa will be making its debut as World Cup host this season.
The OWG programme in China’s Secret Garden will feature the moguls qualifications on February 3, with the finals coming up on February 5.
After Beijing the moguls tour will travel to Tazawako (JPN) for a double event on February 26-27. From there is onto the homestretch of the season as we hit southwestern Siberia, where another brand new World Cup venue will host a pair of moguls and dual moguls competition on March 5-6 in Kuzbass (RUS). Then the following week we’ll be back in Shymbulak (KAZ) for dual moguls competition on March 12, before we finally wrap up the season in Megeve (FRA) with moguls and dual moguls competition on March 19-20.
Favourites - Aerials
Starting on the women’s side of things it’s hard not to begin with Australia’s Laura Peel, who is coming off of another exceptional 2020/21 season where she not only managed to defend her World Cup title by earning her second straight crystal globe, but also claimed World Championships gold in Shymbulak - her second career World Championships title.
However, Peel will have a strong competition this season, with many athletes eager to steal her thunder, including her Australian compatriot Danielle Scott. Like Peel, Scott has triple flips in her trick repertoire, and definitely should be in the mix to perform well throughout the season.
Then let’s not forget the always-strong US squad, led by the veteran Ashley Caldwell, who will also have a strong support from their younger teammates Winter Vinecki, Megan Nick and Kaila Kuhn.
Going further down the list it will be exciting to see one of the sport’s greatest athletes return to competition, as we can look forward Xu Mengtao back in the mix after the Chinese team decided not to participate at World Cup in the 2020/21 season due to the pandemic. With 25 World Cup victories to her account, Xu will be leading a strong contingent of Chinese athletes highly motivated to make some noise in 2021/22 with their home-soil Olympics looming so large over proceedings.
Also to watch out for are the likes of Liubov Nikitina (RUS), Hanna Huskova (BLR), or the 2021 Rookie of the Year Megan Thenault (CAN), all of whom are well capable of jumping on top of the podium on a good day.
Moving to the men’s part of competition, we definitely need to start with Maxim Burov (RUS), as he’s coming of a tremendous 2020/21 season in which he won six competitions, claimed his career’s second crystal globe, and won two World Championships titles - one individual and one in the team event.
Beside Burov, the Russian team will be looking for strong performances from their other athletes - Stanislav Nikitin and Pavel Krotov, who both finished in overall top-5 this past World Cup campaign.
Then let’s move over to Swiss squad with Noe Roth, Pirmin Werner and Nicolas Gygax all developing into world class aerials athletes over the past few seasons while scoring some impressive results on the way, including World Cup crystal globes and World Championships medals.
Obviously, also on the men’s side we should see some fire coming from the Chinese team with Guangpu Qi looking to snag his career’s 15th World Cup victory this season, as well as add first Olympic medal to his list of achievements.
Finally, let’s not forget about our North American friends with Canada putting high hopes in Lewis Irving, and the USA pinning their hopes on the likes of Justin Schoenfeld, Christopher Lillis and Eric Loughran.
Favourites - Moguls
Looking to the moguls scene, it’s Perrine Laffont (FRA) who stands as the overwhelming favourite for the win at every single event she will enter in 2021/22. The French rider claimed her fourth consecutive crystal globe last season while also grabbing the World Championships gold medal in moguls to fulfil her long-time goal of winning all the major titles in mogul skiing.
Also to watch out for is Anri Kawamura of Japan, last season’s number two in the ranking, along with her teammates Hinako Tomitaka and Kisara Sumiyoshi, both of whom are expected to step things up from their respective seventh and eighth place at the end of 2020/21.
The US moguls team will have plenty of reasons to be excited about in the upcoming campaign as Hannah Soar, Kai Owens, Jaelin Kauf and Tess Johnson showed some impressive form last year taking spots from three to six in the overall ranking.
Then we have the likes of Australia’s Jakara Anthony and Brittney Cox, Yulia Galysheva and Anastasia Gorodko out of Kazakhstan, as well as the Canadians Justine and Chloe Dufour-Lapointe, Berkley Brown and Maia Schwinghammer.
And finally, we’ll wrap up our look at the favourites on the women’s side by mentioning the Russian duo of up-and-comers Anastasia Smirnova and Viktoriia Lazarenko, who stormed to a 1-2 result for the Russian team in dual moguls at the World Championships in Almaty last season.
Over to the men’s side of things and we start with the greatest moguls skier of all-time, as Mikael Kingsbury remains the undisputed “King of Moguls” into his 13th season of World Cup action. Kingsbury should be as motivated as he’s ever been to win everything there is to win in 2021/22, after missing significant time last season due a back injury.
Because of the injury, last season was the first in 10 years that we didn’t see Kingsbury celebrate with the crystal globe in his hands once the season wrapped up in Almaty. Still, the 29-year-old won every event he entered after his comeback in February 2021 while also snagging two World Championships gold medals, to take top spot atop the all-time FIS Freestyle world champs medal rankings in the process.
Then we have Ikuma Horishima (JPN), who is the only rider to win against Kingsbury since 2019, and who has the trick repertoire, the speed and the push to Kingsbury at every competitions. One of the most entertaining skiers in moguls, it’s must-watch action every time Horishima drops in on a moguls course, and we can’t wait to see the duo compete in moguls and dual moguls competitions this upcoming campaign.
And, of course, we can’t fail to mention Matt Graham, who was able to step up in Kingsbury’s absence last season and grab the moguls crystal globe, ahead of Ben Cavet (FRA) and Ludvig Fjallstrom (SWE), who completed the moguls overall podium in second and third place, respectively.
Then we have the likes of Brodie Summers (AUS), Marco Tade (SUI) and Dmitry Reikherd (KAZ), as well as the US athletes Bradley Wilson, Dylan Walczyk, and last year’s “Rookie of the Year” Nick Page, all of whom are expected to heat things up in 2021/22.
Last but not least, we’re also excited to see Walter Wallberg (SWE) back in the starting gate, after missing some considerable time due to injury. Wallberg had an impressive 2019/20 campaign and while we haven’t seen him competing on tour since February 2020, the Swedish rider is back and he showed some promising riding a couple of weeks ago at the FIS Open competitions in Idre Fjall. One thing we know is that the 21-year-old is hungry for good results and there’s no better chance to show it than in the Olympic season.
Links
2022 Olympic Winter Games programme: AERIALS & MOGULS
2021 aerials World Championships results: WOMEN / MEN / TEAM EVENT
2021 moguls World Championships results: WOMEN MO / MEN MO / WOMEN DM / MEN DM
