USA kicks off World Champs with gold in aerials team event

The first Freestyle medal event at the Bakuriani 2023 FIS Freestyle, Snowboard and Freeski World Championships went down in epic fashion on Saturday, with Ashley Caldwell, Chris Lillis and Quinn Dehlinger of the USA claiming aerials mixed team World Championships gold, followed by China with silver and Ukraine taking home the bronze.

After a couple of tough days of training due to strong winds at the aerials site at Bakuriani’s Kokhta venue, Mother Nature was finally on the athletes side on Sunday, and the calmer conditions allowed the best three skiers from each nation in the finals to put on explosive show for the packed Georgian crowd on hand.

Team USA was on fire all day long, leading the way in both rounds of the finals and winning the competition with a final combined score of 331.37 points.

In the superfinal Caldwell put down a solid back Full double Full, while Lillis, who jumped second, came through with a near-perfect double Full-Full-Full, putting USA in the lead with just one more round of jumps reaming in the competition.

Last but not least for the U.S. squad was Quinn Dehlinger, who was fresh off his first ever World Cup win a couple of weeks ago back in Canada. On Sunday Dehlinger managed to put his double Full-Full-Full down to his feet under enormous pressure, consequently sealing the deal for the US team for their first world championships aerials team gold medal.