Only four days after a heavy fall in slopestyle, the freestyle ski acrobatic descent event, the French Tess Ledeux recovered perfectly, Saturday March 4, in big air (the big jump), winning her third title at 21 years old. Freestyle Skiing Championships on the slopes of Bakuriani, in Georgia.
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After a difficult start to the season, with injuries and a concussion, emotion and relief were visible on the face of the La Plagne skier after her third jump on Saturday afternoon, a « double switch » successful, synonymous with a gold medal.
“It’s a dream come true. I had this bad fall in slopestyle, I’m so happy, I can’t believe it. It’s my third world championship title and I think it was the hardest to get.”explained the French just after this new world title.
Tuesday, February 28, after two successful jumps, she had attempted the same figure in slopestyle, but she had hit the top of her skis at the reception, hitting the track with her head. She only took 12th and last place in this slopestyle event, where she was among the favorites.
“The pressure was so strong. I’m so happy to land this figure, it’s the first time for me in competition. It’s just amazing”she still appreciated after her final.
The farewell of his cousin Kevin Rolland to the competition
2017 world champion in slopestyle and 2019 in big air, Tess Ledeux was one of the favorites for the world title on Saturday, in the absence of the Olympic champion and star of freestyle skiing, the Chinese Eileen Gu, injured at the end of January at the X -Games in Aspen (Colorado). She landed her first noon jump perfectly, a 1620 (four and a half turns) grabbing her skis with her hands, to take the lead with 94.25 points. After missing the landing of her second jump in difficult weather conditions, she retried a « switch double », on his third pass, this time successfully landing, which earned him a score of 92.50 points. She thus relegated these two main rivals to more than ten points of her total: the Norwegian Sandra Eie (175.00 pts) and the Canadian Megan Oldham (174.00 pts). The Savoyard thus took her revenge on the latter who had dominated her on the big air of the last X-Games.
France returns with 4 medals
As a nod to history, she won this world title the day when, at these same Worlds-2023, her cousin, the French halfpipe ski star Kevin Rolland, at the age of 33, said goodbye to competition. by taking a seventh place in his last race of the world championship.
The French freestyle skiing and snowboarding team returns from Georgia and these post-Olympic Worlds-2023 with three gold medals – the two of Perrine Laffont in moguls (single and parallel) and that of Tess Ledeux – and a bronze medal (Chloé Trespeuch and Merlin Surget in mixed team snowboardcross). The biggest disappointment came from cross country, in snowboarding and skiing, without a podium in the individual races.
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