Wanaka’s Nico Porteous (19) claimed the men’s Freeski Halfpipe title at the Freeski and Snowboard World Championships in Aspen on Saturday morning.
Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (20), also of Wanaka, had won the women’s Snowboard Slopestyle just a few hours earlier.
Porteous is the first New Zealander to claim a FIS World Championship title for freeski while Sadowski-Synnott is the first person to defend an FIS Snowboard World Championship title.
With the Winter Olympics in Beijing in under a year, there is genuine excitement. Both athletes won medals at the last Olympics in South Korea in 2018.
Snows Sports NZ chief executive Nic Cavanagh was thrilled with the win and paid credit for the hard work done by the duo and the support by resort partners.
"Make sure the gains we made last year are kept.
"These guys know that. They will be looking at things, looking ahead about where they have to go. This is high performance sport. If you stand still then someone will pass you."
Porteous came into today’s finals competition as the man to beat. He burst out of the start in run one, went for the back-to-back 16s, landed clean and skied away with a score of 94.5.
He could not be caught and was elated with the win.
“I went through a crazy high at X Games with the result there and then two days later I broke my foot and went through a low period, stuck at home for a month,” he said.
"I’m just absolutely stoked.”
Sadowski-Synnott jumped from dead last into the top spot on the very last run of the competition.
She knew she had a good performance in her.
“I knew if I landed my run I had a good chance of taking the top spot,” she said.
“It was all up to me. I knew I could do those tricks, I was just trying to get it done so I could defend the title.”
Sadowski-Synnott will compete today while Porteous heads to Europe for a training camp.
