On Saturday, a week after Alex Ferreira bested him in the X Games Aspen freeski superpipe final, Aaron Blunck of Crested Butte won the Land Rover U.S. Grand Prix International Ski Federation World Cup event at Mammoth Mountain in California.
Without Ferreira competing in Mammoth, Blunck won the competition on the strength of three runs through the pipe that all could have easily won him the competition on Saturday afternoon: consecutive scores of 94.20, 96.20 and 97.20. On his final top-scoring run, Blunck laced a 5-hit run through the pipe that featured five double-cork (twice inverted) tricks.
The dominant performance puts the rest of the competitive men’s freeski halfpipe field on notice ahead of next week’s modified superpipe competition at Dew Tour at Copper Mountain Resort. Last year, Ferreira won the Dew Tour men’s freeski modified superpipe competition at Breckenridge Ski Resort, Blunck finished four points behind him in second.
This year, the modified superpipe at Copper Mountain will be similar to last year’s modified pipe at Breckenridge, though the more atypical, transition features on the modified course will be above the traditional pipe as opposed to below it, as was the case at Breckenridge last year.
Birk Irving of Winter Park (88.00) and Jaxin Hoerter of Breckenridge (84.00) finished fourth and eighth, respectively, at the Mammoth Mountain Grand Prix competition on Saturday. Irving is currently slated to compete at Dew Tour, Hoerter is not.
Other top finishers on Saturday were Canadian runner-up Noah Bowman (88.60) and third-place finisher Lyman Currier of Boulder (88.20). Other Americans in final included Taylor Seaton of Avon (seventh, 85.60), Hunter Hess of Oregon (74.00) and David Wise of Nevada (35.80).
Next week’s Dew Tour men’s freeski modified superpipe final is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 9 at 9 a.m., at the Woodward Superpipe just above Copper’s Center Village.