Estonian freestyle skier Henry Sildaru beats Birk Ruud to take World Cup series title
Versatile Estonian freestyle skier Henry Sildaru has won this season's FIS World Cup title, outstripping Norwegian star Birk Ruud.
The result adds to the silver medal Sildaru, 19, took in the halfpipe event at last month's Milano Cortina Winter Olympics; the Estonian was the only competitor in the World Cup series to be in the points across all three disciplines: Halfpipe, slopestyle and Big Air.
He clinched the title by finishing second in the final World Cup halfpipe event of the season in Silvaplana, Switzerland.
Reversing his Olympic fortunes, Sildaru finished second in the slopestyle standings with 220 points, 13th in halfpipe with 104 points, and 38th in Big Air with 19 points. Sildaru thus surpassed Ruud in the overall standings and took the men's freestyle skiing overall title with 343 points.
Ruud, who took slopestyle gold in Milano Cortina, won the same World Cup category with 280 points, but was 18th in Big Air with 58 points (338 total). He has not competed in the halfpipe for several years. Ruud is no relation to Norwegian tennis player Casper Ruud, though the pair are from the same region of Norway and have joked that they are "sporting brothers."
Sildaru needed to finish in the top two and ahead of U.S. skier Hunter Hess going into the Silvaplana competition, whose qualification started earlier in the week.
He amassed 88.00 points on his first run in the ski halfpipe final, beating his closest rival by 2.75 points. While he did not improve his score on the second run and was overtaken by New Zealander Luke Harrold, who put in a performance gaining him 93.25 points, other key competitors failed to produce the goods, meaning Sildaru hung on to his second place and the overall title.
Two other Estonians were competing in Silvaplana, one of them, Henry's older sister, Kelly, who had shaken off injury to return to World Cup competition in mid-December. In her shortened season, she took part in four halfpipe events, finishing 11th overall in the discipline with 113 points.
This followed the fifth place the Beijing Olympics bronze medalist picked up in Silvaplana.
The other Estonian, Grete-Mia Meentalo, placed 17th in Switzerland.
First place went to Briton Zoe Atkin, who earned 86.75 points in her opening run. The 23-year-old Brit also secured the halfpipe small crystal globe, collecting a total of 360 points over the season.
The overall winner of the women's freestyle skiing World Cup was Kirsty Muir of Scotland, who collected 470 points across slopestyle and Big Air events.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
