World Juniors: Five Brits In Action On Day One In NZ
The 2018 Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Junior Championships kick off in New Zealand tomorrow with a handful of British competitors in action.
While no British snowboarders will feature in tomorrow’s big air qualifiers, five skiers are aiming to be in contention in Saturday’s finals.
Fourteen-year-old Kirsty Muir is fresh from a pair of thirds in slopestyle and halfpipe at last week’s New Zealand Open and returns to Cardona this week eyeing a strong result in all three disciplines.
Muir, who recently won a scholarship to Momentum’s summer freeski camp in Whistler, won the ski big air at The Brits in April and does not need to compete tomorrow with the female big air being contested as a straight final on Saturday.
A quartet of British skiers will feature in male big air qualifying: Jasper and Felix Klein, Tom Greenway and Sam Ward.
Ward, 18, made his World Cup debut in halfpipe earlier this year and last week was victorious in the New Zealand Open in the same discipline. He comes into this competition with confidence from that win as well as a third place finish in big air at The Brits earlier this year.
Seventeen-year-old Greenway scored a sixth-place finish at his first-ever Europa Cup big air competition in February and is at his second World Juniors having finished as the second-ranked Brit in slopestyle at last year’s event in Italy.
Felix Klein, 18, earned a top five finish at a Europa Cup big air competition in March, going on to make his slopestyle World Cup debut later that month. Last week he was seventh in slopestyle at the New Zealand Open in a strong event featuring a number of Olympians from PyeongChang.
Felix is making his first appearance at the World Junior Championships alongside younger brother Jasper. The sixteen-year-old earned a top 20 result at a FIS big air event in Switzerland earlier this year and was also the second-ranked under-16 skier in The Brits big air competition in April.
All five skiers will also compete in slopestyle in Cardrona with Muir and Ward taking on the halfpipe as well.
