Murase and Spalding Earn Crowns at Winter Games New Zealand FIS Snowboard Slopestyle World Cup

Cardrona Alpine Resort, New Zealand (2 September 2024) – Kokomo Murase (Japan) and Cameron Spalding (Canada) have earned the crowns at the Winter Games New Zealand FIS Snowboard Slopestyle World Cup presented by La Roche Posay & Cardrona Alpine Resort.

While hopes were high for a proper finals showdown to open the 2024 FIS Snowboard Slopestyle World Cup season, the weather made things challenging. Despite best efforts, the finals were unable to be held and results were taken from the qualification round held on Saturday.

In the women’s competition, Kokomo Murase (Japan, age 19) claimed the fourth Snowboard Slopestyle World Cup win of her career. She laced together a stylish cab 270 on, continuing cab 270 off with a tail press on the down rail, a huge back 900 with a tail grab on the first jump and and impressive frontside 1080 indy grab on the final jump.

Mia Brookes (Great Britain, age 17), current Snowboard Slopestyle World Champion, finished in second place with her technical and clean rail section impressing the judges. USA’s Rebecca Flynn (18) finished in third place, securing the first World Cup podium of her young career.

Brookes explained: “It was definitely challenging but it was a sick place to do it, one of my favorite resorts [Cardrona Alpine Resort]. To just put down a run on the day is a big achievement in yourself, so I am hyped that I put a run down!”

In the men’s competition Cameron Spalding (Canada, age 19), 2023 Winter Games New Zealand Junior World Championships silver medallist, took the win in the tightly fought event, just 0.75 points ahead of Norway’s Mons Roisland. This marked Spalding’s first World Cup victory.  

Spalding said: “I am over the moon…I was just trying to have as much fun as I could, especially when it’s hard weather conditions. It can be tough, but at the same time snowboarding is an outside sport and we have to deal with weather everywhere we go so you just learn to deal with it over time.”

Spalding put down a solid rail section with a 50/50 transfer backside 270 off the rainbow rail and a 270 on, 630 out of the cannon rail. He finished his run with bang, stomping a textbook backside 1620 with a tail grab on the third jump.

Roisland, Beijing 2022 Snowboard Big Air silver medalist, impressed the judges with his frontside 270, 450 cork off the flat bar and his double cork frontside rodeo 1080 with a frontside grab on the final jump. 

New Zealand’s Rocco Jamieson (Wānaka, age 18) claimed his maiden World Cup podium with a third place finish in the men’s competition. Jamieson pulled out his trademark double sloth roll pullback on the second jump to the delight of the home crowd watching from the top of the course.

Jamieson said: “It means so much, especially on home turf. It’s pretty crazy, my first World Cup at home, I couldn’t ask for anything more. I tried to add my own kind of tricks, different tricks, especially on a difficult day like that.”

It was a great day for Kiwi snowboarding, with three men finishing in the top six, a line up that New Zealand hasn’t seen since the Calgary Snowboard Slopestyle World Cup in 2010. Wānaka’s Campbell Melville Ives finished in fourth place and Dane Menzies finished in sixth place.

Local legend Zoi Sadowski-Synnott finished in eighth place in the women’s competition, meaning New Zealand had an incredible four riders in the top eight at the first Olympic Qualification event for Milano Cortina 2026.

The Winter Games New Zealand program continues with the FIS ANC Premium Freeski Slopestyle this week (weather permitting) before rounding out the 2024 program with the FIS Freeski Halfpipe World Cup presented by La Roche Posay & Cardrona Alpine Resort on September 7 and 8.