The 19-year-old achieved his first world cup podium when he finished second in the halfpipe final at the Laax Open in Switzerland.
It is ideal timing as he prepares for the invitation-only X-Games in Aspen and the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina.
As rider after rider fell, Melville Ives kept his composure in the Laax final.
His first near-perfect run ended in disappointment as he failed to land his final trick, but in the second run he brought it home, scoring a 91.
That took him to the top of the leaderboard until the last rider of the competition — four-time Olympian Scotty James, who landed an epic run to achieve a winning 98.75.
Melville Ives advanced to the finals after a strong qualifying performance, scoring 84 to finish fourth in his heat.
The heart-stopping final featured a spectacular Melville Ives run with five tricks — a cab triple cork, frontside triple cork, backside double cork, double alley-oop rodeo and switch alley-oop rodeo — impressing the judges with huge amplitude and high difficulty.
The young New Zealander was the first athlete to land back-to-back triples in competition.
"First run, I made a mistake early in the run, hit a wrong edge and ran out of pipe at the end,’’ Melville Ives said.
‘‘Second run, I adjusted the trick into a single.
"I felt pretty calm and relaxed. I’ve been riding that pipe for so many years so just relaxed into the feeling of when it’s warm and sunny there, and that helped with the nerves."
New Zealand park and pipe coach Tom Willmott said Melville Ives had been targeting the run for a long time and attempted different versions but had not pieced them all together until yesterday.
Mitch Brown, Melville Ives’ personal coach, said the New Zealand team were proud of the youngster.
"It’s the first time he’s landed that sequence and the first time an athlete has landed back-to-back triples in a competition, so we’re super proud of him, and he executed it with so much style and swagger,’’ Brown said.
"He’s been working so hard over a long period of time and was incredibly brave in firm night-time conditions to send it as hard as he did."
Melville Ives will make his Olympic debut with his twin, freeskier Finley.
