Harrigan and Waddell looking forward to first Big Air event of the season

📷 | FIS 

The Big Air Chur (SUI) will kickstart the 2021/2022 FIS World Cup for Snowboard Park and Pipe and Freeski competition this weekend.

The innovative incity event which combines freestyle snow sports and music in a festival format is also the first opportunity for athletes to prove themselves as they vy for a spot on their national squads ahead of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, now just over 100 days away.

NSW Institute of Sport scholarship holders freeskiers Abi Harrigan and Cameron Waddell will be amongst the Aussies in the start gate, with Matthew Cox also expected to take part in the snowboard event. 

Twenty-one year old Waddell said he’s feeling good after some solid training blocks in the lead-up to the World Cup season opener.

“We were fortunate enough to be on snow for a lot of the time during the Australian winter, which was fantastic. Perisher and Thredbo had amazing facilities for us to train in. And then we just finished up a two-week training camp up at Bormio for the Prinoth X Camp, which was amazing. Perfect jumps. Perfect weather. Just super fortunate to be there.

“There was a perfect step-up jump [at the camp] which was really good to learn new tricks. I got two new 16s down, so hopefully we can make one of them work in the Big Air World Cup. It should be a good show,” he said.

It will be the first Big Air World Cup event for 19-year-old Harrigan, who took the win in the same event at the Perisher Showdown in August. Chur’s 40-metre-high steel scaffolding structure - which will be used in both freeski and snowboarding - can look intimidating at first glance. 

“It looks pretty big at the moment! But I am sure it will get better as soon as we start jumping. The first time will be terrifying, but...that’s fun!”

Harrigan is also grateful that the team was able to get a fair bit of skiing in during the preparation, despite the challenges posed by lockdowns and bad weather. 

“[At the Prinoth X Camp] they had a little rail set up at the top and also a quarter pipe into two fairly big jumps. I’ve been working on a few tricks like Switch 9s and Switch 7s, some forward stuff as well, and grabs. So feeling good, although a bit nervous [ahead of the World Cup first event],” she said.

FIS Contest Director Roberto Moresi said that Big Air Chur is a very important event for FIS.

“It represents a reboost and signals that we are finally back. All the teams are excited. We have a very deep entry list so this will be a first highlight of the season and also one of the last events that will count into the Olympic qualification process,” he said.

Freeski qualifications start on Friday 22 October at 6.25pm (AEDT) with finals scheduled for 3am (AEDT). The snowboard Big Air event will follow on Saturday. Results and live scoring are available on the FIS website for both freeski and snowboard events.