Double Olympic gold medallist Eileen Gu soared to victory in the finals of the FIS freeski halfpipe world cup at Cardrona yesterday.
Gu landed her 15th world cup win, a record for a female or male skier, as she outscored her fellow competitors in each of her three runs, five years after she reached her first world cup podium at Cardrona.
"It’s a full-circle moment", Gu said.
"Seeing that record being broken today for men and women means a ton to me and it’s something I’ll carry with me, and I hope to continue breaking records in the future."
The final event at the Winter Games, postponed from Sunday, was initially hit by blizzard-like conditions, and resulted in the eight female and 10 male qualifiers having their work cut out for them in Cardrona’s 22-foot Olympic halfpipe.
Gu, the last to drop into the pipe in the women’s field, waited patiently for a break in the howling wind before starting her first run.
Opening with a huge right-side 900, she set the bar with a score of 92, and followed up with impressive trick execution and technique as well as gaining massive amplitude out of the pipe to improve her score to 94.5.
Gu had secured victory ahead of her third run but still she pushed with a trademark high-level run including a rightside cork 9 Buick grab, left side cork 9 Japan, right side 7 lead tail, switch left 7 Japan, and left alley oop flat spin 540 mute grab.
The judges awarded a score of 96 points, praising her amplitude, variety of tricks and consistently good grabs and for spinning her tricks in four different directions.
"It means so much", Gu said.
"I think for me, skiing is always about pushing the next level so I was happy with the 92 on run one but I wanted to push it to 94 and then I wanted to push to 96.
"Every contest is a new challenge so having that resilience mentally and physically to compete and put it down when it counts ... it’s a challenge every time. It keeps it fun and exciting."
Fellow Chinese skier Kexin Zhang finished second with an 89.25 on her third run, and Rachael Karker (Canada) was third with an 87.
There was a nice story in the men’s field as Canadian skier Brendan Mackay, who grabbed the 10th and final qualifying spot, claimed victory yesterday.
The 2023 world champion earned a score of 90 for a clean second run that included a switch left alley oop double 900 critical, switch left down the pipe double 1080 safety grab, right side double cork 1260 safety and left side double cork 1260 safety.
"It feels amazing to put down the run I wanted", Mackay said.
"The wind definitely made it scarier but when it’s like that you’ve just got to push through and trust what you can do on skis and let it rip."
Experienced skier Alex Ferreira (US) finished second with a best score of 89.5, and Andrew Longino (Canada) was third with an 87.75.
New Zealand skiers Finley Melville Ives, 18, and Luke Harrold, 16, struggled to back up their performances on Friday, when they qualified in first and third place respectively. Harrold finished seventh in the final and Melville Ives 10th.
