Switzerland claims historic first Aerials Team gold
Feb 08, 2019·Freestyle
The second night of aerials competition at the Utah 2019 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle & Freeski World Championships saw Switzerland pull off a stunning upset in the team competition, as Carol Bouvard, Nicolas Gygax, and Noe Roth put on a collectively inspired performance to best traditional aerials powerhouses China, Russia, and Belarus in a thrilling evening of jumping at Deer Valley Resort.
Having just been added to the Olympic programme for Beijing 2022 this past off-season, Thursday night’s competition was the first team aerials world championships showdown, and it did not disappoint, with all the intrigue and strategy of the mixed team event combined with the unexpected Swiss gold medal winners making for an evening to remember.
Through the first round of jumps it was the Russian team, lead by Wednesday night’s men’s individual gold medal winner Maxim Burov, ladies’ silver medallist Luibov Nikitina, and Stanislav Nikitin looking like the strongest bet for gold with the leading combined score of the four teams to make it through to the super final. However, the underdog Swiss did make their way through to the first round of just behind the Russians in second spot to hint at what was to come.
Though the Swiss team had, collectively, a total of 31 World Cup starts (and only one top-10 finish) between their three athletes heading into Utah 2019 world championships competition, the young squad showed poise beyond their years and experience in facing down some tough competition. However, Roth did take world championships gold in the previous evening’s individual competition, and with one of the most experienced coaches in the game in Roth’s father Michel, the Swiss made good on some previous-unrealized potential on Thursday night.
In the superfinal Bouvard put down a solid back full, full and Roth finished off the team’s jumping with an excellent back double full, full, full, with a small backslap. However, the highlight of the superfinal went to Nicolas Gygax, who jumped second for the Swiss team and cleanly landed a back full, double full, full, that - at 121.68 points - was the highest scoring jump of any athlete in the final round, giving the team a combined score of 303.08 for the gold medals.
“It’s amazing,” said Roth before the awards ceremony, “Switzerland hasn’t had much success in past years at world champs, but today we won. It’s was super fun jumping today. I didn’t have a good training but in competition I was good. It was a close battle tonight but we got it in the end. I just did my jumps and hoped my teammates could do theirs too and they did.”
With a team of Wednesday’s individual ladies’ bronze medallist Xu Mengtao, Sun Jiaxu, and Wang Jindi, the Chinese squad finished in the silver medal position with a score of 297.82, less than six points back of the Swiss. And, with small mistakes in all three of their jumps costing them dearly, the favourite Russians would have to settle for the bronze with a score of 296.74, just 1.08 points back of the Chinese team.
“I’m very, very happy, and very excited, because this is the first time for team aerials at the world championships,” said the always engaging Xu, “We’re looking for gold in two years at home in Beijing! But Switzerland was very good tonight. I first saw Noe jumping 13 years ago when he was five years old, and now he’s here with world championships medals, so I’m proud of him!”
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