Young guns with top scores in slopestyle qualifiers in Seiser Alm
Aug 31, 2018·Freeski Park & Pipe
Seiser Alm (ITA) - Colline Ballet-Baz (FRA), Noah Morrison (CAN), Mark Hendrickson (CAN) and Taisei Yamamoto (JPN) have topped their respective heats in the qualifications for the second slopestyle World Cup of the season taking place in one of the Italy's finest snowpark in South Tyrolean resort Seiser Alm.
The blue bird sky and mild temperatures created just the perfect conditions for almost 100 riders from all over the World to play on and charge hard all day long on the perfectly shaped and creative course put by the local F-tech crew. At the end of the day however it was only a fraction of those athletes to leave the mountain with hopes for the win in Saturday's finals.
In the ladies' qualifiers it was Colline Ballet-Baz who set the high score of the day, stomping a pretty impressive run that included a left 270 in, backside 450 out and switch right lipslide on the rail features followed by a right cork 720 safety, left 540 tail and a switch left 720 on the jumps.
The French rider will be joined in the top-8 ladies' final by the qualifiers' runners-up Mee Hyun Lee (KOR), Sochi 2014 gold medallist Dara Howell (CAN), Sarah Hoefflin (SUI), Caroline Claire (USA), Zuzana Stromkova (SVK), as well as Lara Wolf (AUT) and Kattie Summerhayes (GBR).
With as much as 74 men to check in at the start gate in men's competition, it was Noah Morrison as well as two newcomers on the slopestyle World Cup tour Mark Hendrickson and Taisei Yamamoto who impressed the judges with technical tricks and solid execution.
The most experienced out of this trio, Morrison clinched his heat 1 with a run consisting of a left lipslide 270 in, backside 450 out and swtich right 270 in to pretzel 270 out on the three-rail jibb section before hitting the kicker line with left 900 tail, right dub 1080 safety and left dub 1260 blunt.
Competing by far only in the Nor-Am Cup Mark Hendrickson made a pretty impressive start on the World Cup tour by taking top spot in his heat 2 with a right 270 in pretzel 270 out, back 450 out and switch left 270 back swap on rails and left dub 1260 japan, switch left dub 1080 mute and switch right dub 10 japan to finish things off on the jumps.
Similarly to Hendrickson, also Taisei Yamamoto representing Japan showed some strong riding for his first-ever slopestyle World Cup appearance and took the first place in heat 3 with a massive score of 93.66 for his highly technical run. He started off with a right 270 in 450 out, left 270 to 270 out and a k-fed up on the top section, just to send it over the kickers with right dub 1260 mute to truck driver, switch right dub 900 japan to truck driver and left dub 1260 mute to safety.
Ferdinand Dahl (NOR), Oscar Wester (SWE) and Max Moffatt (CAN) as well as Russ Henshaw (AUS), Kim Gubser (SUI) and Jackson Wells (NZL) also qualified to top-16 men's final from heat 1 and heat 2 respectively, while Emil Granbom (SWE), Oliwer Magnusson (SWE) and Colin Wili (SUI) completed the list from heat 3.
Twelve more riders will battle for the last four remaining spots in the semi finals scheduled for Saturday morning.
The finals will take place right after the semi finals at 11:30 CET.
LIVE SCORING:
Live brackets will be available here:
LIVE BROADCAST:
EUROSPORT - Livestream available on Eurosport Player
RAI - Italy (Livestream available on raiplay.it)
SFR SPORT 3 - France
NBC - USA (Livestream available nbcsports.com)
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