Canadians stay hot in World Champs halfpipe; Hudak, Dumont medal

By Published On: February 5th, 2011Comments Off on Canadians stay hot in World Champs halfpipe; Hudak, Dumont medal

Canadian skiers have been on a roll (12 medals, half of which are gold) at the 2011 FIS Freestyle World Championships going on this week in Park City, Utah. Their hot streak continued in the halfpipe today (Feb. 5) as Canadian skiers claimed half of the medals including both golds.

Weather threw an additional challenge at competitors as cloud cover and snow-carrying winds blowing across the pipe made landing high flying tricks even more difficult.

Adding more pressure was the fact that IOC officials were on hand to evaluate the possibility of ski halfpipe being included in the 2014 Winter Olympic schedule.

Rosalind Groenewoud secured the women’s win with a score of 44.7 in the best-of-two-run format. Joining Groenewoud on the podium was teammate Keltie Hansen with the bronze medal. Filling the gap was American Jen Hudak, who took the silver medal with a 42.1-point score, moving up from her third-place performance at the 2009 worlds.

“It feels awesome, I’m definitely a proud Canadian,” said Groenewoud, who admitted today’s conditions with blowing snow and the flat light made jumping out of the pipe a little scary. “I’m super happy to win today.”

North Americans filled the women’s top six as last week’s X Games winner, Canadian Sarah Burke finished fourth ahead of U.S. skiers Devin Logan and Brita Sigourney in fifth and sixth, respectively.

“I came out here, I knew the conditions were going to be tough. I just put my blinders on and focused on what I had to do,” said Hudak, who caught an edge during her first run but bounced back to take the second-best score with her second run. “I feel like there are things I could have done in my skiing that would have improved my score and my run. I missed a lot of grabs which is one of the strong points of my run usually. It was a lot of pressure as the last skier, I managed to mostly do it and I’m definitely happy with performing under the pressure.”

With a crafty pair of switch nines, Micheal Riddle took the men’s gold with a top score of 45.6 ahead of Frenchman Kevin Rolland, who was only four tenths of a point off the mark in second. Rolland is red hot right now, having won at the latest Dew Tour stop and last weekend’s X Games, he was also the defending 2009 World Champion.

“The weather was definitely a challenge, we knew that right when we arrived in training,” said Riddle, who earned a victory lap after sealing the gold with his first run. “It’s a very exciting time for our sport with the push for the Olympics, I’d like to think we put on a pretty good show today. I hope the IOC was watching and looking at the potential we have to put on a good show.”

American Simon Dumont earned the bronze medal to match his result at this year’s X Games.

“The biggest thing about today was obviously the Olympic push,” said Dumont, who faced particularly strong winds.”If this were any other event, I probably would have pulled out. But our big goal is to end up in the Olympics. Hopefully we proved that we are here, we’re serious and we are going to ski in a hurricane and put on a good show.”
U.S. piper David Wise just missed the podium by two tenths of a point in fourth place.

The Freestyle World Championships conclude tonight with men’s and women’s dual moguls competitions at Deer Valley.    

Image by Gepa

Women’s Results

Rank Bib FIS Code Name Year Nation Result Level Points
 1  1  2485240 GROENEWOUD Rosalind  1989  CAN   44.7    1000.00
 2  10  2382062 HUDAK Jennifer  1986  USA   42.1    800.00
 3  12  2526959 HANSEN Keltie  1992  CAN   38.8    600.00
 4  18  2484584 BURKE Sarah  1982  CAN   38.3    500.00
 5  11  2527818 LOGAN Devin  1993  USA   35.8    450.00
 6  9  2484708 SIGOURNEY Brita  1990  USA   35.1    400.00
 7  20  2469362 JAEGER Mirjam  1982  SUI   34.2    360.00
 8  3  2485261 AERTS Katrien  1976  BEL   30.8    320.00
 9  19  2526151 MATSUURA Emi  1986  JPN   30.2    290.00
 10  17  2485115 MITSUBOSHI Manami  1984  JPN   29.5    260.00
 11  21  2484352 LONSDALE Emma  1984  GBR   28.7    240.00
 12  15  2485289 CARADEUX Anais  1990  FRA       220.00
 13  4  2529125 SJAASTAD CHRISTIANSEN Tiril  1995  NOR   27.8    200.00
 14  24  2529086 SUMMERHAYES Katie  1995  GBR   26.0    180.00
 15  14  2485256 CUMMING Jessica  1983  USA   24.0    160.00
 16  7  2527483 BAUER Daniela  1986  AUT   22.1    150.00
 17  23  2529128 RUSTEN ANDERSEN Nina  1988  NOR   20.4    140.00
 18  5  2526380 GRIFFITHS Katia  1980  SPA   19.8    130.00
 19  25  2528740 BATTERSBY Rose  1993  NZE   3.7    0.00
Did not start
     2373041 SANTA-OLALLA Reyes  1984  SPA       
     2449865 FAIVRE Virginie  1982  SUI       
     2529131 ELIASSEN Grete  1986  NOR       

Men’s Results

Rank Bib FIS Code Name Year Nation Result Level Points
 1  19  2484398 RIDDLE Micheal  1986  CAN   45.6    1000.00
 2  12  2414363 ROLLAND Kevin  1989  FRA   45.2    800.00
 3  20  2484571 DUMONT Simon  1986  USA   43.2    600.00
 4  9  2484582 WISE David  1990  USA   43.0    500.00
 5  22  2526841 WELLS Byron  1992  NZE   42.8    450.00
 6  1  2424257 BERTONI Xavier  1988  FRA   41.2    400.00
 7  17  2526277 PERKINS Tucker  1991  USA   36.0    360.00
 8  2  2526511 VALENTIN Benoit  1992  FRA   34.8    320.00
 9  25  2525940 WELLS Josiah  1990  NZE   34.6    290.00
 10  3  2450156 LAUPER Nils  1982  SUI   33.3    260.00
 11  13  2526779 BOWMAN Noah  1992  CAN   32.1    240.00
 12  15  2525951 DOREY Justin  1988  CAN   30.5    220.00
 13  42  2528389 YATER-WALLACE Torin  1995  USA   33.9    200.00
 14  27  2525958 MARGETTS Matthew  1988  CAN   33.3    180.00
 15  10  2529122 LINDSTAD Jon Anders  1994  NOR   31.1    160.00
 16  18  2528796 MAHLER Kai  1995  SUI   31.0    150.00
 17  43  2529130 DOLPLADS Thomas  1989  NOR   30.9    140.00
 18  26  2526214 MACHON James  1990  GBR   30.0    130.00
 19  36  2526922 WOODS James  1992  GBR   30.0    120.00
 20  35  2526227 BUCHAN Murray  1991  GBR   26.5    110.00
 21  31  2527586 RATY Matti  1988  FIN   26.3    100.00
 22  16  2527589 ELSHOUT Nicolas  1987  BEL   26.0    90.00
 23  28  2528946 CROOK Peter  1993  IVB   25.5    80.00
 24  37  2528807 JOHNSON Matt  1990  NZE   21.4    70.00
 25  29  2526722 CHRISTEN Marc  1992  LIE   21.1    60.00
 26  30  2485218 TSUDA Kentaro  1983  JPN   20.2    50.00
 27  24  2424548 KRIEF Thomas  1993  FRA   15.6    45.00
 28  33  2527337 SONEHARA Isao  1984  JPN   13.2    0.00
 29  23  2528635 KIM Kwang-Jin  1995  KOR   9.7    0.00
Did not start
     2527732 FINNE Klaus  1990  NOR       
     2528741 BEAZLEY Raphael  1995  NZE       
     2527405 JORDAN DAVID Scott  1993  AND       
     2485264 KEMPPAINEN Antti-Jussi  1989  FIN       

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About the Author: Eric Williams