Snowboarding
Laax Open 2021 Slopestyle: the winners, losers and winning losers
Held in extraordinary times, the Laax Open Slopestyle finals was an extraordinary contest day. Find out who won big and catch the best runs from Switzerland right here.
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Despite some of the biggest names being absent from the Laax Open 2021 slopestyle constest due to the ongoing health situation, this was still a classic edition. Here's just four of the memorable narratives that played out in the perfectly sculpted Laax snowpark.
Women's Slopestyle: youth vs experience
First up were the ladies. Eight riders, two runs, best run counts. Windy, greybird conditions made things tough at the start, but as the headwind began to drop, the action began to heat up.
You might say this was a battle of the generations: 30-year-old Jamie Anderson (USA) was the seasoned veteran, chasing her fifth Laax Open title, while New Zealand's 19-year-old Zoi Sadowski-Synnott was the talented rookie chasing her first Laax crown.
After putting in a solid performance in her first run, Sadowski-Synnott went into the second round in pole position, but Anderson would be dropping last and this put the young gun under huge pressure – nothing's more dangerous than Jamie Anderson playing catch-up. The pressure seemed to get to the young Kiwi and she fell, leaving the door wide open for Jamie, who doesn't ever seem to fall. Dropping last, the vet kept it Zen and, like the master she is, turned up the heat a couple of notches to won her fifth Laax Open title.
Women's Slopestyle Top-3
- Jamie Anderson (USA)
- Zoi Sadowski Synnott (NZL)
- Tess Coady (AUS)
Men's Slopestyle: every dog has his day
Sweden's Niklas Mattsson is a true rider's rider: the kind of snowboarder all the other pros love to watch and don’t understand why he doesn't win more contests. A lot more contests. In fact, even though he's 28 and has been on the scene for over a decade, he’d never won a major contest before – despite having a huge arsenal of technical tricks and maybe the most original grabs in the sport.
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Men's Slopestyle winning run
Check out the style-packed run that handed Niklas Mattson the win in Men's Slopestyle.
Which makes it all the more perfect that he finally won his first major contest here in Laax. The Laax Open has always been the kind of contest where rookie talents get discovered and underdogs come out of nowhere to take home the win. In fact, the last time a Swede stood on top of a podium in Laax was all the way back in 2005, when rookie Chris Sörman came out of nowhere to take home the slopestyle title. Don't you love it when history repeats itself?
Men's Slopestyle Top-3
- Niklas Mattsson (SWE)
- Leon Vockensperger (GER)
- Marcus Kleveland (NOR)
Anna Gasser plays it safe for once
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Anna Gasser's run
Go top to bottom with Anna Gasser on her run in the Laax Open 2021 Women's Slopestyle contest.
Coming into the Laax Open 2021, the question on everyone’s lips was would this be the year Anna Gasser finally scores a long-overdue win in Laax? Alas, it wasn't to be. Gasser fell on her first run and then put down a pretty average run (by her incredibly high standards) in the second, eventually placing fifth.
But, if you dig a little deeper, this was actually a pretty good day for the Austrian. How so? Well, the 2022 Winter Olympics are coming up and with no solid FIS scores from 2020 to fall back on and very few events scheduled for 2021, a solid result in Laax was absolutely vital for her Olympic hopes. One of the things we love most about Gasser is her all-in, win or crash approach. This time, though, she played it safe and smart.
Kleveland's comeback
A couple of years back, Marcus Kleveland was without doubt the hottest property in slopestyle. A YouTube freestyle sensation at the age of eight, at 13 this Norwegian prodigy became the youngest rider in the world to stomp a Triple Cork. Then, at 16, he became the first rider to land a Quad Cork in competition and at 17 Kleveland won the 2016 Air & Style Beijing. Back-to-back X Games gold medals followed in 2017 and 2018.
Then, in December 2018, disaster struck. During a training run at the Dew Tour in Vail, Kleveland took a fall directly onto a rail and shattered his kneecap. At first, it looked like a career-ending injury and his only goal was to walk again. But, after a year of gruelling rehab, by late 2019 Kleveland had defied all expectations (including his own) and was able to ride again.
Soon afterwards, he competed in a one-off Knuckle Huck event at X Games Norway 2020, showing that all his former style and skill was fully intact. Still, whipping spins off the knuckle of a jump into the landing is one thing: competing in a fully-fledged slopestyle contest is another. Today was Kleveland's first real test and he finished third, which, when you think about it, is pretty much a win.
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Marcus Kleveland's run
This is the run that handed Norway's Marcus Kleveland third place in the Men's Slopestyle contest.
That's all for now, join us tomorrow evening for the grand finale of the Laax Open 2021 – the Halfpipe finals.
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