Murase and Kimata on top in dominant day for the Japanese team in Tignes
Mar 20, 2024·Snowboard Park & Pipe
While some heavy weather rolled in and created challenging conditions just ahead of the the men’s second run, before that there was a pretty good slopestyle World Cup competition going on on Friday at the Tignes Mountain Shaker. By competition’s end it would be the Japanese team walking away with five out of six podiums, as Kokomo Murase lead a historic sweep off the women’s podium, and Ryoma Kimata earned his first World Cup victory for the men.
While the day dawned sunny and warm, clouds rolled in just ahead of finals training, creating some flight light conditions come finals time followed by heavy snow before the final men’s runs. Still, the finals riders stepped in a big way when they could, putting down some heavy runs on the tricky Tignes course.
MURASE’S MAGIC LEADS JAPANESE WOMEN’S SWEEP
Already the midst of an incredible 2023/24 competitions season, Murase came into Tignes the pre-event favourite and left with yet another trophy to add to her case by the end of the day.
Needing something big in her second run, Murase stepped things up from top to bottom, leading things off with a frontside double cork 1080 truckdriver, and then a backside 7 Weddle grab through the first two jumps, before going backside bluntslide 270 out on the waterfall rail, 50-50 backside 180 on the donkey kick rail, and switch back blunt 270 melon on the canon rail, before capping it all off with a cab 900 weddle on the final jump.
Count it all up and you’ve got a score of 90.00 and Murase’s sixth World Cup victory.
Murase’s first World Cup slopestyle victory in two years was part of a historic day for the Japanese women, as with Miyabi Onitsuka and Reira Iwabuchi joining her on the podium, the trio completed just the second Japanese women’s sweep in FIS Snowboard history, and the first ever in slopestyle competition.
Second place with a score of 81.75 was Onitsuka, whose second run saw her go backside 720 weddle and then frontside 900 melon on the first two jumps, then switch backside boardslide to forward on the rainbow, front blunt 270 on the middle downrail, 50-50 frontside 180 on the canon, and finally cab 900 stalefish on the money booter.
Iwabuchi’s third place finish was perhaps the most astonishing performance of the day, as the 22-year-old dropped in just as the storm rolled in hard on the Tignes slopestyle course, battling some of the biggest snowflakes on the day and powering through to leapfrog Canada’s Laurie Blouin and grab the bottom stop on the podium.
Iwabuchi’s storm-shrouded run saw her stomp a cab 900 stalefish and a backside 720 weddle on the jumps, then front bluntslide 270 out on the middle rail of the first rail section, front boardslide on the middle rail of the second section, 50-50 melon grab on the canon rail and finally a frontside 720 Weddle on the final jump for a score of 76.75 and her 15th career World Cup podium.
KIMATA CRUSHES FOR FIRST WORLD CUP VICTORY
For the men, the first World Cup victory for Ryoma Kimata has felt inevitable for quite some time, as the 21-year-old has worked himself up from the outside looking in of the Japanese top-flight national team to, now, an official member, a leader and a World Cup winner.
Kimata’s first run was an absolute ripper, as he lead off with switch backside 1260 stalefish, and then an outrageous backside 1620 melon through jumps one and two, before going switch backside boardslide to front flip on the rainbow rail, switch backside noseslide pretzel 270 on the middle rail of the second section, front bluntslide 630 out on the canon, and finally a perfectly snatched frontside 1440 double tail grab to end it all off.
While the Japanese sweep of the women’s podium and Kimata’s first World Cup victory will get a majority of the attention, for the host French fans, the career-first that came in the second-place position for the men was the biggest story of the day, as 17-year-old Romain Allemand, dropping in on just his third World Cup competition, earned his first World Cup podium with a second place finish.
Allemand lead his 88.50-scoring first run with a frontside double cork 1260 melon, into a switch backside double 1260 melon, then a boardslide pretzel 270 out on the waterfall, a cab 180 on to frontside 360 out of the donkey kick rail, a frontside 270 in 810 out on the canon rail, and finally a heavy frontside double cork 1440 bloody dracula on the final jump.
On top of being Allemand’s first World Cup podium, it was also the first ever slopestyle World Cup podium for a French snowboard on the men’s side of things, and the fact that it came at the first FIS Snowboard slopestyle World Cup to hit the slopes of Tignes made things very special indeed.
Finally, rounding at the men’s podium in third for the fifth podium of the day for the Japanese team was Taiga Hasegawa with a score of 85.00.
Hasegawa began his first run with a backside 1260 melon, then into cab 1440 tailgrab to finish off the top two jumps, before going cab 270 on 270 out on the waterfall rail, 50-50 to backside bluntslide 270 out on the A-frame rail, then front bluntslide 810 out of the canon to finish off the rails, before capping it all off with a switch backside triple 1440 weddle.
With Tignes now in the books it’s on to Silvaplana’s Corvatsch resort for the final competition of the 2023/24 FIS Snowboard season, as we once again finish the season off in Switzerland with qualifications slated for 21 March, followed by finals on 23 March.
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