NSWIS snowboard athletes Tess Coady and Matt Cox have taken part in their first World Cup event of the 2020/21 season, with a big air competition held with an all star field in Kreischberg, Austria.
 
In the qualifying round, Tess Coady placed 22nd with a two jump total score of 96.60 points, missing out on the six woman final in her first World Cup big air start since November 2019.
 
Zoi Sadowski Synnott of New Zealand took the win in the women’s event, with Kokomo Murase of Japan finishing second, with Anna Gasser of Austria in third place.
 
The men’s field for qualifying was split into two heats, with Matt Cox taking part in heat number one. He placed 13th in his heat with a two jump score of 123.60 points, placing him in an overall position of 27th.
 
The men’s event was won by Canadian Max Parrot, with Swedish rider Sven Thorgren in second and Mons Roisland in third.
 
The next event for the park and pipe athletes is in Laax, Switzerland with a slopestyle event scheduled on January 22 and halfpipe on January 23.

In the halfpipe event, Scotty James will be competing for the first time this season, and young gun Valentino Guseli also making his World Cup debut. Emily Arthur will also be in action in the women’s event.
 
Coady and Cox will feature again, this time in the slopestyle discipline.
 
IMAGE: Matt Cox flying high in Kreischberg © Matt Cox Instagram

Triple World Champion Scotty James relocated to Europe in August and has been training on snow over the past months preparing for the northern hemisphere winter.
 
Tess Coady, Matt Cox and Valentino Guseli all spent time in Perisher during the Australian winter, before travelling to Europe at the end of September for on snow training camps at air bag and glacier based terrain parks in Austria and Switzerland.
 
The Copper Mountain World Cup event scheduled for December was cancelled due to COVID restrictions in Colorado, and postponing the first events of the season until January

NSWIS Snowboarder Matt Cox has finished the big air World Cup season ranked 11th in the world, after a number of impressive performances in the four big air events this season.

At the final stop in Atlanta, USA, SunTrust Park, home of the Atlanta Braves in Major League Baseball was transformed into a spectacular street style venue.

Cox finished in 20th place in Atlanta, his third top-20 performance of the big air season, with the other highlights being a fifth place in Cardrona, New Zealand, in August, and a tenth place finish last week in Beijing, China.Cox said despite the score, he was happy with his performance overall and is looking ahead to the next competition already. 
“I was super hyped, I landed both my runs.  I didn’t quite get the score I wanted which is a little bit of bummer but it’s on to the next,” said Cox.
“So this BIg Air here kind of wraps everything up for the season and we’re on to slopestyle next should be awesome.
“The venue has been incredible, we’re at a Baseball stadium… we got to sit in the locker room where the baseball players sit and walk out through the dug out into the venue,” he said.

With the big air tour now complete, Cox will not turn his attention back to the slopestyle discipline

IMAGE - The big air setup at SunTrust Park, Atlanta © FIS Snowboard

NSWIS Snowboarder Tess Coady has made a successful return to competition, finishing in 11th place at the Big Air World Cup in Modena, Italy.
 
The Modena Big Air was a scaffold ramp setup, with riders getting two jumps in the qualification round, with the highest of the two jumps counting for advancing to the six woman or 10 man final.
 
In her first event back since sustaining a knee injury at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, Coady put down her highest scoring jump first up, with a score of 58 points putting her in 11th place.
 
In the men's event, NSWIS rider Matthew Cox was unable to back up his recent breakthrough fifth place finish at the World Cup in Cardona, New Zealand, finishing in 41st place.
 
The next competition on the schedule for Cox is the Big Air event in Beijing, China, with Coady looking at competing in January at the World Cup Slopestyle event in Seiser Aim, Italy.