Gu and Ferreira cap dominant season with crystal globe wins in Calgary

“Everything went perfectly here tonight,” Gu said following her record-tying win, “First off, a huge thank you to the crew here in Calgary. I’ve made it clear that I love this place, it feels like home for me, so huge shout-out to the people who make this event happen.

“And yeah, to be tied with Birk Ruud (NOR) for number one, he’s an incredible athlete and I’m honoured to be tied up there at number one with him. I’d like for it to be just me soon, but we’ll see!

Discussing her top-scoring victory lap, Gu got into more detail about her process.

“I’m kind of notorious for not taking (easy) victory laps,” she said, “I think this sport really is about pushing yourself and breaking your own boundaries. I love to compete, I love to win, but more than anything I love to be a little better than I was yesterday. So yeah, I thought I had to step it up a little bit and show everyone what I’ve been working on. I’m really proud of what I put down out there tonight.”

Second place for the women went to Zoe Atkin of Great Britain, who was again on her smooth, consistent game, with both her first two runs scoring in the 90s.

Her best was her 92.00 point-scoring first, in which she went left 540 mute, into a right 720 safety, then switch left 720 Japan, right 540 opposite tail, right alley-oop 360 tail, and finally switch right 720 opposite safety to lock down her fourth podium on the season and secure third place on the final halfpipe World Cup rankings with 260 points.

Racking up a career milestone of her own in third place was the USA’s Svea Irving, who secured her first World Cup podium with a third and final run that saw her go left alley-oop flat 540 Japan, then left 540 safety to Japan, into a right 720 safety, then a switch left 360 mute, a corked right 540 safety, and finally a left 900 safety to finish things off.

Irving’s final effort bumped Amy Fraser off of the podium and into fourth place, but the top Canadian hopeful would not walk away from the night empty-handed, as she would finish the season ranked second behind Gu with a total of 290 points to claim the 2023/24 FIS Freeski halfpipe World Cup silver medal.

FERREIRA COMPLETES PERFECT WORLD CUP SEASON

Over on the men’s side of things the Alex Ferreira show ended the season with one more near-perfect performance to cap off a landmark, World Cup-first perfect season, as the 29-year-old made it five-for-five in 2023/24 to set a men’s halfpipe wins record that we will likely not see soon repeated.

While the previous men’s World Cup win streak of three-straight was set by Kalle Leinonen (FIN) over the course two seasons from 2005-2007, no skier in history had previously knocked off three victories in one World Cup season in men’s competition, and certainly not three in a row. For Ferreira to go perfect across five competitions in 2023/24 represents a level of excellence in one of freeskiing’s most demanding forums that simply defies the imagination.

Ferreira got the job done on Saturday with his first run of the evening, leading things off with a switch left 1080 blunt, straight into a massive right double 16 safety, followed by a left 1080 opposite tail, a switch right double down-the-pipe 1080 double Japan, and finally finished things off with an exclamation point left double 1620 safety for a score of 95.50.