Starting on the women’s side it’s hard not to begin with Danielle Scott (AUS), the winner of the season’s opening competition in Ruka, as well as her teammate Laura Peel (AUS) as they both are among a very few athletes with a triple flip combinations in their trick repertoire. And while Scott started the 2022/23 campaign on a high, Peel will be looking to redeem herself after somehow a disappointing performance in Finland, where she failed to put a Lay-Tuck-Full to her feet and finished in 11th place.
Nevertheless, Peel is still remains one of the main favourites for the win here in Le Relais and she proved that already during trainings, stomping some impressive triple flips including a Lay-Full-Full. It will be indeed exciting to see whether the 2020 and 2021 World Cup champion is able to reassert her dominance and return to the top of the podium.
Moving on, there is Canada’s Marion Thenault, who also started the season off strong with a second place finish in Ruka. Thenault also claimed the second place at last year’s event in Le Relais and again this season she will be hoping for a good result in front of the home crowd.
Staying in North America, let’s not forget about always strong US squad with Winter Vinecki and Kaila Kuhn in squad. Also after missing the first event in Ruka, Ashley Caldwell is expected to start her competition season in Le Relais this weekend as everyone is slowly building up the form for the upcoming World Championships in Georgia in the second half of February.
Moving over to the men’s part of the competition, there is obviously the Swiss duo of Pirmin Werner and Noe Roth, who are leading the World Cup ranking in the respective first and second place after their explosive start into 2022/23 campaign in Finland.
Then going further down the start list, also keep a close eye on Canada’s Lewis Irwing and Alexandre Duchain, number three and four from Ruka.
Let’s also not forget about Dmytro Kotovskyi (UKR), who will be hoping to make some noise with his Full-triple Full-Full aka the “Hurricane”, as well as his teammate and the 2018 Olympic Champion Oleksandr Abramenko, also very capable of getting on top of the podium on a good day.
Last, but not least the US Team will be putting high hopes in the likes of Christopher Lillis and Justin Schoenefeld.
The Saturday’s competition will get underway at 9:00 EST with women’s qualifications. Men will follow right after at 11:15 with finals scheduled to go down at 13:00. Sunday’s event will also get underway at 9:00 with finals coming up once again at 13:00.
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