Ono and Totsuka top Sapporo World Cup after heavy snow forces finals cancellation
Mar 08, 2026·Snowboard Park & Pipe:format(webp))
Japan’s Yuto Totsuka and Mitsuki Ono claimed home halfpipe victories at the Sapporo Open on Sunday based on their dominant qualification performances, after the finals were cancelled due to heavy snow.
The pair were among 23 finalists scheduled to contest the men’s and women’s Halfpipe finals at Sapporo’s Ban-K resort on Sunday, however competition was cancelled due to continuing snow which made for prohibitively sticky conditions in the Ban-K pipe.
Final results were instead based on qualification results from Friday, with Totsuka taking the victory in the men’s field, after the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games Halfpipe champion topped qualifications with his second-run score of 91.50.
Australia’s Valentino Guseli was runner-up after posting his best score of 89.00 in Friday’s qualifications, while Milano Cortina 2026 bronze medallist Ryusei Yamada was third on 85.50 points.
The men’s podium in Sapporo bears some resemblance to the Milano Cortina 2026 men’s Halfpipe podium, which saw Totsuka in first place and Yamada third, separated by another Australian – reigning World Champion Scotty James.
Totsuka’s Sapporo victory is his second win of the 2025/26 FIS Park and Pipe World Cup season after he won the U.S. Grand Prix at Aspen’s Buttermilk resort in January.
The victory is also the 10th of Totsuka's career, as the 24-year-old becomes just the second rider in Halfpipe World Cup history to hit double digits in career wins after Scotty James. Totsuka now sits just one win back of the veteran Australian, who has 11 career World Cup triumphs.
Sunday’s win also extends Totsuka’s lead in the discipline standings to 396 points with a current total of four top-two finishes from six World Cup starts. He is trailed by Guseli on 350 points.
In the women’s field, 22-year-old Ono claimed victory based on her qualification score of 87.00, followed by teammate Sena Tomita on 78.50. Sixteen-year-old Sara Shimizu (JPN) was third on 78.00.
Ono’s win in Sapporo follows her bronze medal at the Milano Cortina 2026 Games in February. It also marks the 22-year-old’s second World Cup victory of the 2025/26 season after she won the U.S. Grand Prix in Buttermilk in January.
Tomita’s second-place finish is her fourth podium of the season after she was third in Buttermilk and runner-up at the Copper World Cup in December.
Sixteen-year-old Shimizu’s third place comes after she narrowly missed out on an Olympic medal in fourth place. Before Sunday, her best World Cup result this season was 10th place at the Laax Open in January. Shimizu won the Snow League Aspen competition two weekends ago.
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Rise Kudo (JPN) was fourth in Sapporo, and the 16-year-old now trails women’s Halfpipe standings leader Gaon Choi (KOR) by just four points, with 296 compared to Choi’s 300.
Choi, 17, is yet to resume the World Cup circuit after she won gold at Milano Cortina 2026. The teenager won three consecutive World Cup events en route to becoming Olympic champion in February, but fell heavily in her first run at the Games. While she would go on to win gold, the residual effects of her Olympic crash have kept her out of competition so far since the Games.
The next stop on the Halfpipe World Cup tour will be the 2025/26 World Cup Finals in Silvaplana (SUI), where the 2025/26 Halfpipe Crystal Globe winners will be decided from 25-29 March.
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