The FIS Snowboard World Cup heads into the back half of the 2019/20 season with four jam-packed days of action this week in California, where the Mammoth Mountain Land Rover US Grand Prix sees slopestyle and halfpipe competitions take to the resort’s famed Unbound park and pipe!

Halfpipe qualifications opened the action already on Tuesday, and on Wednesday it was the slopestyle riders’ turn for qualifications. Pipe finals, meanwhile, are going down today on Friday the 31st, while slopestyle finals will close things out tomorrow on February 1. Over 100 of the world’s best snowboarders are on hand for this week’s events, with 66 names currently on the slopestyle entry list.

Anderson looking for repeat of 2017 Mammoth win

All eyes will be on the host US women’s team in the coming days of slopestyle competition at Mammoth Mountain, with the inimitable Jamie Anderson leading the way and her teammate Hailey Langland close behind.

Fresh off her sixth career X Games slopestyle gold medal, Anderson once again asserted herself as the best slopestyle rider in the game last week in Aspen. The winner here in Mammoth the last time women’s slopestyle was held in 2017 (the 2019 women’s competition was cancelled due to weather), Anderson will be tough to match this week.

Langland, meanwhile, continues to impress as one of the most stylish riders in the game, and finished just behind Anderson in second at the 2017 Mammoth Mountain World Cup.

Tops of the women’s slopestyle World Cup belongs to Katie Ormerod of Great Britain, as the 22-year-old continued an outstanding 2019/20 campaign with a second-place finish in Seiser Alm last week to go along with a third in Laax the week before that. Along with Canada’s Laurie Blouin – who finished second behind Anderson at the X Games – and Loranne Smans of Belgium, the international field will push Anderson and Langland hard in the women’s event.

Khadarin carries World Cup lead in Mammoth

After taking his first career slopestyle World Cup win last week in Seiser Alm, Russia’s Vlad Khadarin comes into Mammoth hot as the World Cup leader after two competitions thus far, with 1070 points.

Khadarin was followed up in Seiser Alm by the Japanese duo of Ruki Tobita and Hiroaki Kunitake, who took second and third respectively. Those two – along with their teammate Ryoma Kimata, who’s looked exceptional in training despite the fact he’s entering his first World Cup slopestyle competition – all have the chops to pull off a victory on Saturday.

Incredibly, Tobita is the only international rider to earn a men’s slopestyle podium in Mammoth over the course of the three previous competitions here, as the US squad has absolutely dominated by taking eight out of a possible nine spots in the top three – including two podium sweeps.

Source: FIS Snowboard
Photos: Buchholz / FIS Snowboard