Freestyle fans and future freestyle fans are boffo’d by the tricky freeski finals at Crap Sogn Gion. Thousands of them line the innovative course for the 10th edition of the LAAX OPEN to spectate and partake at the FIS Freeski World Cup, which is endowed with CHF 70,000.
Superstar Eileen Gu (CHN) wins the LAAX OPEN Slopestyle title for the first time. She awes with class and style, such as the double 10 on the kicker and wins with a clear lead over her rivals, multiple X-Games winner Megan Oldham (CAN) and overall World Cup winner Mathilde Gremaud from Switzerland, the two of whom battled out a very close decision.
With a spectacular second run, Birk Ruud wins the freeski slopestyle at the LAAX OPEN 2025 and successfully defends his 2024 title, ahead of the two strong Americans Mac Forehand, world ranking leader and Alex Hall, Olympic champion in this discipline.
“This is my first title as Birk 2.0, and it feels great!” says the beaming Norwegian, who, after a World Cup foray into the snowboarding world, is now once more fully focused on skiing and captivates everyone with his double flair on the final quarterpipe feature.
Andri Ragettli, local hero and LAAX OPEN champion 2023, finishes in a steady 6th place.
Eileen Gu speaks for many of the over 200 freestyle pros who are at the FIS Freeski & Snowboard World Cup in LAAX this week, “Everyone here in LAAX lives and breathes the freestyle spirit and as an athlete, I want to express my respect and appreciation for this. The course was incredible! For me personally, it was really special today. I think it’s one of the best slopestyle runs I’ve ever done.”
The LAAX OPEN continues tomorrow, Saturday, with the snowboarding decisions. The slopestyle (13:00) and halfpipe (18:00) finals at Crap Sogn Gion will be followed by live concerts with Phenomden and MOBB DEEP in the valley.
All results are available at laax.com/open as well as the livestreams on Saturday.
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