Park & Pipe Australia New Zealand Cup season wraps up in Cardrona
Oct 07, 2025·Freeski Park & Pipe
The 2025 Australia New Zealand Cup (ANC) came to a close with a huge slate of competitions at Cardrona Alpine Resort (NZL) last week, where we saw slopestyle, halfpipe, and big air events going down for both freeski and snowboard.
Throw in the NZ Freestyle Nationals competitions that were taking place concurrently there in Cardrona and you had yourself a busy weekend of Park & Pipe action indeed at one of the Southern Hemisphere’s premier freestyle resorts.
Cardrona marked the fourth stop of the 2025 ANC season, with the top slopestyle/big air athletes of the campaign earning themselves personal quota spots for the upcoming FIS World Cup season.
And, with the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games looming on the horizon, those personal quota spots take on a huge amount of added significance this season.
THOMAS AND MCARTHUR LEAD THE FREESKI WAY
On the freeski side of things it was Daisy Thomas of Australia and New Zealand’s Fergus McArthur punching their tickets to the 2025/26 World Cup campaign by topping the respective women’s and men’s standings.
Thomas earned wo victories, a runner-up, and a third place finish in her four ANC starts this season. McArthur, meanwhile, earned a win, a second place, and a third place finishes to highlight his five ANC cup starts.
HEAVY HITTERS WAKUSHIMA AND COLLINS ON TOP OF ANC FOR SB
For the snowboarders we saw some heavy-hitters making some predictably big impacts at the ANC level, with New Zealand’s Cool Wakushima and Tiarn Collins finishing the season down under atop the rankings.
For Wakushima, two victories and a third-place finish in three ANC starts bodes extremely well for the 23-year-old as she looks for a strong return to the World Cup in 2025/26 after missing all of the 2024/25 World Cup season due to injury (though she did return for the Engadin 2025 World Championships).
Collins, meanwhile, hit all four stops on the 2025 ANC, earning a win, two runner-up finishes, a third place, and a fourth place finish in his five starts. Similarly to Wakishima, Collins missed the majority of the 2024/25 competition season due to injury and will be looking to return to the form that saw him claim the slopestyle Crystal Globe back in 2020/21.
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