For the fourth time, Big Air Chur in Graubünden opened the competitive winter season this weekend with some of the world’s best riders battling it out from atop the 41 meter in run in-front of 20,000 Swiss fans. But as Japanese riders swept the top spots, it was New Zealand’s Rocco Jamieson who caught our eye debuting a mind bending NBD.
First, the results.
In the female snowboarder category, Mari Fukada, who blew our minds in Thredbo this year, took home her first Big Air World Cup at the ripe old age of 17 ahead of two seasoned veterans. Mari went frontside 1080 and backside 1260 to take the W. Burton Team-mate Reira Iwabuchi, Big Air Chur winner in 2022, came close in second and Laurie Blouin, the experienced Canadian who won Olympic silver, ranked third.
In the mens, it was 18-year-old Taiga Hasegawa who took top spot as he went frontside 1800 and cab-1800 to earn himself his first Big Air Chur title.
But the real people’s champ was New Zealand’s Rocco Jamieson, also 18, who for the first time landed what is being coined the Rubix Flip. Having debuted this mind bender on Instagram a few weeks back – the press release reveals what we’ve all been trying to figure out in our own minds – what the hell was that? The trick is being called a ‘backside rodeo indy pretzel switch backside rodeo – a backside rodeo in which he changed the direction of rotation in the air’.
That’s a mouthful, but I guess it makes sense. Rubix flip from now on.
The New Zealander landed in second place and had this to say “I’m so stoked to put down my new trick. It’s a little scary but I was so hyped. That was my first time I did it in a comp. It’s the best place to do it here in front of that crowd. I couldn’t image anything better.”
Keep it up Rocco, we’re big fans.
The highest individual trick score of the evening (91.50) was dished out to Frenchman Romain Allemand (17 years old) for his frontside 1800. In combination with his second trick, he ultimately comes in third.
Comp season is offically on, nice work Chur!
