Park & Pipe Nor-Am Cup recap 2023/24
Apr 16, 2024·Freeski Park & Pipe
The Nor-Am Cup season wrapped up in early April at Quebec, Canada’s Stoneham Resort, capping off a season that saw 10 competitions each take place for freeski and snowboard, spread across halfpipe, slopestyle and big air events, with a number of top athletes punching their tickets to World Cup quota spots for the 2024/25 World Cup season.
Clarke, Mulvihill, Gray and McCarthy earn freeski World Cup spots for next season
Leading the way on the freeski big air & slopestyle side of things were the Canadians, with Skye Clarke and Aidan Mulvihill taking top spots on the respective women’s and men’s Nor-Am Cup rankings.
21-year-old Clarke had a dominant season in the women’s Nor-Am circuit, as she claimed victory in four of five competitions entered in 2023/24, including back-to-back slopestyle and big air victories in Stoneham to put an exclamation mark on her season. Clarke has shown she’s more than ready to make the jump to the World Cup, and we look forward to her first starts on the big tour next season.
After a couple of disappointing results to start his season, 19-year-old Mulvihill turned it on in the latter half of the campaign, finishing with slopestyle wins in Aspen Snowmass (USA) and Stoneham and a big air third in Stoneham to shoot to the top of the rankings.
For freeski halfpipe, meanwhile, it was the U.S. squad leading the way, as Kathryn Gray and Cael McCarthy earned the Nor-Am overall victories for the season.
It was a breakout season for halfpipe/slopestyle/big air triple threat Gray, who made several World Cup finals, won Gangwon 2024 Youth Olympic Games bronze, and claimed victories in Nor-Am halfpipe and slopestyle competitions through the course of 2023/24. Gray would finish with two victories and a runner-up in her Nor-Am pipe season to earn top spot overall.
For McCarthy, who also spent a significant amount of time dropping in on World Cup events this season, it was four Nor-Am podiums on the season, including two victories, a runner-up and a third place finish that would punch his card for full-time World Cup action next season.
Big Nor-Am season for U.S. Snowboard as Flynn, Johnson, Shaffrick and Fedorowycz top rankings
For the snowboarders it was USA all the way on both the big air & slopestyle and halfpipe Nor-Am circuit in 2023/24, as the Stars and Stripes swept the top spots across all of four of those rankings list as well as taking the majority of the spots in the top-10 as well - including all the top nine spots in the men’s halfpipe rankings.
Leading the way on the women’s big air & slopestyle Nor-Am Cup standings was Rebecca Flynn, claiming her World Cup spot for next season in two different ways, in what was a hugely impressive 2023/24 campaign.
Flynn earned one victory and four total podiums in Nor-Am action last season, doubling down on her World Cup quota spot with a Livigno 2024 Junior World Championships big air gold, while also taking JWC slopestyle bronze, and big air silver at the Youth Olympic Games. Exciting stuff from the 17-year-old, to say the least.
With 290 points, Katilyn Adams was tied with her teammate Flynn atop the rankings points-wise, though Flynn would be awarded top spot on a tiebreaker. However, Adams has already largely graduated to full-time World Cup duty already, and was the second-ranked U.S. rider on the big tour this past season. We’ll be seeing plenty more of her in the years to come.
Top spot on the men’s big air & slopestyle Nor-Am rankings was Liam Johnson who, though he didn’t manage any victories this past season, did earn three podiums and a total of five top-5s in his seven Nor-Am starts.
On the halfpipe side of things it was 29-year-old Maddy Shaffrick shocking the Nor-Am circuit, as the current U.S. Ski & Snowboard team halfpipe coach dropped in her first competitions in almost a decade and promptly scored a victory, a second place and a sixth place finish to improbably end up atop the rankings by season end.
What this means for the U.S. squad we’re really not sure of, at this point, but it’s looking like we could have ourselves a rare athlete-coach in the World Cup bib next season.
Only an athlete’s top three results count towards their final Nor-Am halfpipe ranking, and while Shaffrick finished the season tied in points with her 15-year-old compatriot Rochelle Weinberg, Shaffrick would end up higher on the rankings due to her victory at the Aspen Nor-Am premium event.
Finally, the men’s Nor-Am halfpipe title would be claimed but Levko Fedorowycz, who was able to take two wins in just four starts as he split his time between Nor-Ams and World Cup last season. Set to turn 20 years old in August, Fedorowycz looks ready to take the next step in 2024/25 in what will be just his fourth season of FIS-sanctioned competition.
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