Facing unsteady and sometimes tough weather conditions in the Takasu Snow Park at Gujo, Gifu Province, two main aspirants for victory were able to successfully compete against all other contenders. In the last contest of the 2009 LG Snowboard FIS World Cup prior the 8th FIS Snowboard World Championships in Korea, which will take place from January 17th to 24th in Gangwon, Jiayu Liu (CHN) and Ryoh Aono (JPN) secured the win and thus also took over the Halfpipe World Cup lead.

The Chinese rider had already set the base for her triumph in run one of the ladies’ final when she earned 43.5 points. In the second run, no one of the other five riders beat the score, so Zhifeng Sun was able to celebrate a Chinese double victory together with her team mate finishing second with 38.8 points, having only a lead of 1.4 points on third ranked Japanese Soko Yamoka. On the men’s side, Aono proved some nerves made of steel scoring 43.8 points in the second run after Ben Mates (AUS) had shortly taken over the lead with 40.6 points bringing home his career’s best result as second. In addition, Wancheng Shi rounded out the podium as third (CHN, 38.6) with another career’s best in today’s final ranking.

Mates had planned a lot for his second final at his 28 World Cup starts. After he had already placed fifth in the first run of the final he proposed to himself to “get down a better, clearer run” true to his today’s motto “No safety runs!” In the consistently heavier snowfall and after some of his opponents had bailed the 25-year-old Australian sticked such a clean run including a “Frontside 900” followed by a “Backside 540”, “Back-to-back 720’s” wrapping-up with a “Straight Air” bringing him the temporary first rank. “I was going all or nothing. I wanted a good result and it paid off”, so the Olympian of the 2006 Winter Games in Torino.

Thereafter, Shi and fourth ranked Kazuumi Fujita (JPN) weren’t able to counter but so did the leader after run number one Ryoh Aono. Throwing in a high level performance with great air time including a “Lien Air” to start with, a “Backside 900”, a Frontside 720” as well as a “Cab 720” and a final “Frontside 900”. “I’m very happy that everything worked out. I didn’t expect it but everybody was cheering for me. In addition, my coach and tech supported me in a great way”, said the Japanese rider after the finals.

Jiayu Liu now one of top aspirants for World Championships title