Last Saturday, on a crisp, floodlight course in Davos, Switzerland, the 6-star WST O’Neill Evolution came to a close with the dramatic finals of the big air competition. Over the same weekend the second Olympic Slopestyle qualifying event was also going down in Stoneham, Canada (and saw our British Olympic hopefuls absolutely boss it in both slopestyle and pipe), meaning that many big names were absent from the competition. These were the very kind of scheduling conflicts the WST had hoped to avoid with their proposals to the International Olympic Committee and the FIS.

Thankfully, it really had no impact whatsoever on the level of riding. After a raging torrent of double corks from the likes of Antoine Truchon, Torgeir Begrem, and Sebastien Toutant, it was young French Canadian Maxcence Parrot who stepped it up in the superfinals with not one, but two backside triple cork 1440’s – his second and final one being the cleanest, most stomped triple we’ve seen in a contest thus far. That trick by Parrot earned him a score of 96.8 which, despite an absolutely stellar effort from 15 year old Kyle Mack who put down a frontside triple rodeo off the toes, was ultimately not to be beaten, with Parrot earning himself a cool €25,000 in the process.

Check out Mack’s ridiculously rad looking triple below, and listen out for Henry Jackson going ballistic… “HOLY CRAP!! DID YOU JUST SEE THAT! DID YOU JUST SEE THAT!”

Priceless.

Rounding out the podium with a mere frontside double cork 1080 stomped clean as whistle (please note the sarcasm in that statement) was Emil Ulsletten from Norway:

With two out of three podium finishers stomping triple corks, you can only wonder when this rapid rate of progression will plateau. Still, love or hate the triple cork revolution that seems to be ramping up within the world of competitive snowboarding at the moment, there’s no denying that it’s proper exciting to watch riders step up and really push the boundaries on what they are capable of doing. Nice one O’Neill Evolution, you did good.

These results see Antoine Truchon move into the top position above Roope Tonteri in the WST big air rankings and Kyle Mack move into second place in the overall rankings behind Roope.

Earlier in the event, 14 year old Miyabi Onitsuka from Japan took the women’s big air title with a huge backside 360 while the UK’s Katie Blundell also dropped into the incredibly intimidating course managing to place fourth in the finals. Also representing ol’ Blighty were Si Cudlip and Lewis Courtier-Jones who placed 17th and 21st respectively in the qualification stages. Good job guys and gals!

O’NEILL EVOLUTION 2013 BIG AIR RESULTS

MEN

1. Maxence Parrot (CAN)
2. Kyle Mack (USA)
3. Emil Ulsletten (NOR)

WOMEN

1. Miyabi Onitsuka (JPN)
2. Christine Szumovski (AUT)
3. Celia Miller (USA)