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Posted on Thursday August 26th at 7:49 a.m.
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Men's winner Taku Hiraoka from Japan. Photo:Bel Jones
The day started with an all-star line up with the forerunners, which included Olympic gold medallist, Kelly Clark (USA) and New Zealand Olympian Juliane Bray.
The women's semi finals saw New Zealander Rebecca Sinclair (18) score the highest qualifying run in the first run. However, by the second run, she dropped to third but still secured a place in the finals along with highest qualifier Haruna Matsuoto (17) and Palmer Taylor (17). In the finals it was Cilka Sadar who dominated with a solid backside 5, frontside 5, backside air, frontside 7, cab 3 finishing with an alleyoop scoring 37.8. Sinclair's second run put her into the silver position with 31.7, landing a crippler 7 (inverted 720 spin), a result she was stoked with given her recent injury woes.
"I wasn't even expecting to be able to compete with my injured ankle," she said. "But it's all strapped up - I've been struggling with landing the crippler all week and I'm stoked I pulled it off in my second run. It's a real privilege to have the Junior World Championships here in New Zealand and great preparation for my next goal which is the World Championships in Spain in January 2011."
Rebecca Sinclair is the first NZer to podium so far in these games finishing 2nd. Photo:Bel Jones
Haruna Matsumoto (17) of Japan rounded out the podium with a score of 31.4.
The men's semi finals saw Australia's Nathan Johnstone (20) take the top finals qualifying spot with a spectacularly solid run with huge amplitude, despite the windy conditions. He was closely followed by Manuel Pietropoli (20) of Italy and New Zealand's Ben Stewart (18).
In the finals Hiraoka once gain stole the day, scoring a massive 44.2 with a frontside air, backside 5, frontside 7, cab 10 and frontside 5, all with huge amplitude, over 12 feet above the pipe edge. "It's amazing to be world champion," he said. "It's really important for my future in halfpipe - I'm so happy."
Johnstone continued his consistently high level of riding with second place with a score of 42.2 while Manuel Pietropoli took bronze. New Zealander Ben Stewart finished in ninth place.
Ben Stewart, the first kiwi in 9th place. Photo:Bel Jones
Head judge, Ola Sundequist, said the level of riding was extremely high. "We were quite worried about the wind earlier on in the morning and that we wouldn't see the riders get much height out of the pipe. However, they ended up going very big and while some were affected by gusts, most landed fine resulting in some good scores. Taku's run was incredible, everything was so smooth."
The snowboard action moves to Snow Park tomorrow for the Parallel Giant Slalom with qualification starting at 9.00am and finals scheduled for 12.00pm.
Click Here For Full Men's Results
Click Here For Full Women's Results
For Full Results Visit the Junior World Championships
About Rebecca Sinclair (18)
Lives: Wanaka (born Takapuna, Auckland).
Event: Snowboard halfpipe.
Background: Sinclair is the youngest athlete in this year's Winter Olympic team.
She first competed for New Zealand in 2006 and won the under-15 halfpipe at the World Youth Games in Italy that year.
She placed 14th at the 2009 World Cup in Italy and was 29th at the Winter Games World Cup at Cardrona.
Sinclair has improved since the Winter Games. She has been competing consistently on the World Cup, Europa Cup and Nor-Am Cup circuits this season, with a string of top-20 results in recent outings. She drew international attention when she placed seventh on the Winter Dew Tour in Breckenridge, Colorado, in 2008. That resulted in an invitation to the Winter X Games, but she turned it down in favour of attending the world championships in Korea last year, where she was 28th.