Gremaud leads hardware haul as Freeski World Cup seasons ends in Silvaplana
Mar 24, 2024·Freeski Park & Pipe
It wasn’t the way anyone was hoping on closing out the 2023/24 FIS Freeski World Cup season, but unfortunately there’s no battling mother nature when she’s in a bad mood, and on Sunday at the Silvaplana slopestyle World Cup season finale the weather won out to force the cancellation of finals.
While there were occasional promising periods at points through the morning and into the early afternoon on Sunday up at Corvatsch 3303 resort, after each period of relative calm the wind would pick back up and force the eight women and 16 men slated to drop in finals to scale back their training runs.
After several frustrating delays and restarts and a weather forecast predicting increasing winds through the afternoon, and following plenty of consultation amongst competition officials, athletes and teams, a vote between the finals athletes lead to the call to cancel finals.
With the cancellation of finals, qualification results would stand as final results, and if there’s one positive takeaway from that occurrence, it’s that Friday’s qualifications took place under ideal conditions, making for a fair, high-level competition phase and for podium athletes who can stand proud of their results.
GREMAUD’S HISTORIC SEASON COMES TO A THREE-GLOBE CLOSE
On top of the Silvaplana competition results, there was a whole lot of end-of-season hardware to give out at the awards ceremony that took place at Corvatsch’s Murtel midstation, including a stack of trophies for Switzerland’s very own record-setter Mathilde Gremaud.
Before we get to Gremaud, however, we need to talk about Tess Ledeux of France, who walked away from the season finale in Silvaplana with her second-straight slopestyle victory, a week after she claimed top spot on home soil in Tignes.
Ledeux’s winning run from Friday began with a right k-fed on the down tail and a right 720 safety on the hip jump, before going through the jump line with a left 900 tail grab, a switch left 720 Japan, and then a switch bio 900 safety, before finishing things off with a straight air on the kicker, then a slide backside 270 out on the final rail feature.
“I feel so happy, so stoked to win another comp here (in Silvaplana),” said Ledeux after awards, as she celebrated her fourth career victory in Silvaplana - the most of any skier in the 11 year history of the competition. “It’s always strange to win a competition on the results from qualification, but that’s part of the game and I’m happy to have the win.”
Second place for the first of her many podium appearances on the day went to Gremaud, giving her a record-setting nine top-3 finishes on the 2023/24 season - meaning a top-3 in every one of her World Cup starts this campaign. That mark - along with her six victories on the season - are both single-season FIS Freeski World Cup records, and may not be soon matched.
Third place behind Gremaud went to Jay Riccomini of the USA, who capped off one of the season’s great breakout stories with his third podium of 2023/24. Riccomini would also finish off the season in third place on the slopestyle overall podium behind crystal globe winner Gremaud and silver medal winner Ledeux.
Along with the slopestyle crystal globe win and her big air globe win from last week in Tignes, Gremaud made yet another bit of FIS Freeski World Cup history on Sunday by taking home the Freeski overall crystal globe to become the first women’s freeski World Cup competitor to win three crystal globes in a single season.
Throw in the fact that Gremaud also reigns supreme in slopestyle as the Beijing 2022 Olympic gold medallist and Bakuriani 2023 World Champion, it becomes clear that we’re witnessing a truly rare era of domination by the 24-year-old.
“I think when I got the first globe in Tignes, just seeing it, it kind of set in,” Gremaud said when asked about whether she has realised the scope of the season she just completed, “But now to have all three globes, it’s just crazy. And to finish off the season here in Switzerland, my family is here and my friends are here and our whole Swiss team, it’s really special.
“I’m hoping that what I’ve done this year can kind of open up people’s minds and change the perception of freeskiing and women in sport here in Switzerland. I’m hoping it gives me some opportunities to open some eyes outside of our sport.”
Second on the Freeski overall rankings behind Gremaud would be halfpipe crystal globe winner Eileen Gu (CHN), while Ledeux would round out the final women’s podium of the 2023/24 World Cup season in third.
RAGETTLI TAKES SILVAPLANA WIN WHILE FOREHAND GRABS GLOBE
Over on the men’s side of things it was Andri Ragettli keeping the good times rolling for the host Swiss team with his lone win of the season, extending an impressive record of his own by earning a victory in his eighth straight World Cup season.
The only skier to log a score in the 80’s on Friday, Ragettli laid down a heavy one for his qualification run, beginning with a switch left tails over 450 on the first rail feature and then right side 900 tail on the hip jump, before going switch double misty 1260 mute on the first straight booter, a left dub 1620 cuban on the second, and a switch dub bio 1620 safety on the final jump, before lacing a smooth left side 900 Japan on the quarterpipe and then finishing off with a left 270 on continuing 630 off on the final rail feature for a score of 81.05 and his 12th career World Cup victory.
“Qualification day was perfect, really nice weather, and I knew in the back of my head that finals day could be bad weather and that we might not be able to compete,” Ragettli said about his win, “So that’s why it was important to me to qualify first.
“I’m super happy with my qualification run, and now this is I think my third win here for me in Corvatsch. It feels great. It’s funny too because some reporter in Switzerland here just wrote a big article about how this was going to be the first time in eight seasons that I don’t get a win in the season, but I guess I fixed that now!”
Second place for the men went to Lukas Muellauer, who became the first Austrian man to hit the slopestyle World Cup podium in FIS Freeski history.
Rounding out the Silvaplana podium in third place for a landmark result of his own was New Zealand’s Luca Harrington, who earned his first World Cup podium at the end of a hugely impressive campaign for the 20-year-old.
While Ragettli would take the competition win in Silvaplana, it was the USA’s Mac Forehand finishing the winter as the season’s top dawg in slopestyle, claiming his second career crystal globe at the end of a campaign that saw him finish in the top five in all five slopestyle World Cups of 2023/24, including a win and two runner-up finishes.
“It’s a bummer we didn’t get to compete today and it sucks to end it this way, but still, it’s been a hell of a season,” Forehand said with the globe in hand following awards, “I had some of the best results of my career this year, and my consistency really helped me out. I set a goal at the start of the season to finish in the top five in all the slopestyle World Cups and I did, so I’m super stoked.”
Second place on the men’s slopestyle overall podium would go to Forehand’s U.S. teammate Alex Hall, who won the men’s big air globe last week in Tignes. Meanwhile, Ragettli would finish in third on the slopestyle season podium.
While Hall would have had a shot at the men’s Freeski overall crystal globe with a big result in Silvaplana finals, with the cancellation of those finals on Sunday he would have to settle for second place. The big men’s trophy would instead go to his countryman Alex Ferreira, who completed the first five-win halfpipe season in World Cup history back in February.
With Forehand grabbing the bronze medal for third place overall, the U.S. Ski Team would in fact sweep the men’s Freeski overall podium, and also go on to take the Freeski Nations Cup trophy as the top squad on the season.
Finally, the last award to be handed out on Sunday afternoon was the Freestyle and Freeski overall Nations Cup trophy, which would go to the Canadian squad, who were best of the best across all of the slopestyle, big air, halfpipe, moguls, aerials and ski cross nations in 2023/24.
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