Yukon freestyle skier Etienne Geoffroy-Gagnon landed a sixth-place finish at the 2023 Big Air Chur FIS Freeski World Cup in Chur, Switzerland.
Geoffroy-Gagnon finished with 88 points in the qualification round on Oct. 19, narrowly missing the required fifth-place finish needed to be in the finals on Oct. 20.
“I felt good about my performance,” he said. “I was not supposed to compete since I wanted to focus on slopestyle events but a teammate pulled out last second and I decided to jump in as an alternate. Good to be back in the start gate.”
Geoffroy-Gagnon’s mother, Sylvie Geoffroy, told the News she is proud of his performance at the competition.
She said he is scheduled to go to Silvaplana, Switzerland, for training before coming back to Whitehorse, where he will lead a freestyle clinic at Mount Sima.
Geoffroy-Gagnon’s next competition is the Freeski World Cup Slopestyle in Stubai, Austria. Qualifying rounds for the competition start on Nov. 22, followed by the finals on Nov. 25 at the Stubai Zoo Snow Park.
Two other Canadian athletes who represented Canada at the Big Air World Cup were Dylan Deschamps, who finished first with 93.66 points, and Jeremy Gagne, who placed eighth with 85.33 points.
With poor weather — strong winds and heavy rain — forcing the finals on Oct. 20 to be cancelled, Deschamps was awarded the first-place position as the jury decided to count the qualification results as the official result for the competition.
This is Deschamps’ first career Big Air World Cup gold medal.
Austria’s Daniel Bacher won second place with 92.66 points, while Norway’s reigning Olympic champion Birk Ruud took third place with 92 points for his ninth consecutive World Cup top-three finish.
In the women’s category, 2022 Olympic gold medalist Mathilde Gremaud from Switzerland finished in first place with 95.5 points. Tess Ledeux from France and Sarah Hoefflin from Switzerland finished in second and third place, respectively, with 94 and 91.75 points.
Contact Patrick Egwu at patrick.egwu@yukon-news.com