BEIJING, Dec. 14 -- Japan's Miyabi Onitsuka claimed a comfortable gold in the women's Snowboard Big Air with 165.00 points after just two jumps.
She threw up two scores of 80.75 and 84.25 in her first two rounds, which placed second in each round respectively, but it was enough to secure an overall win for the Japanese boarder.
Seven points behind in second was the iconic Austrian boarder Anna Gasser on 158.00, and in third was the Canadian Laurie Blouin on 155.75. Both Gasser and Blouin had the highest individual scores in the first and second jumps respectively, but could not find the consistency to overtake Onitsuka, who smooth with both her landings on her two jumps.
In the men's Snowboard Big Air, Max Parrot of Canada grabbed a narrow gold over Sven Thorgren from Sweden by one point. Parrot's two second-place runs in the first and second jumps (92.75 and 93.25) gave him the consistency, as with Onitsuka in the women's competition, to take top place on the podium with 186.00.
Thorgren put together two strong runs, however, a slight dip in his form in the second run (91.75) meant that he sacrificed his first place to Parrot after leading with 93.25.
In third place with 181.25 was America's Chris Corning. His jump in the second round was a near-perfect thing of beauty and scored 97.75, however, he could not replicate the jump in the third round as the temperature dropped and conditions got harder, posting an 83.50.
Today's competition was the first time that Shougang's Big Air facility had hosted a FIS Snowboard Big Air event at the world's first permanent big air facility for skiing and snowboarding.