Olympic snowboard silver medalist Ayumu Hirano set to compete in skateboarding in Tokyo Sorry, but your browser needs Javascript to use this site. If you re not sure how to activate it, please refer to this site: https://www.enable-javascript.com/
Snowboard silver medalist Ayumu Hirano celebrates on the podium at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. | REUTERS
Kyodo May 22, 2021
DES MOINES, Iowa – Two-time Olympic snowboard silver medalist Ayumu Hirano all but secured his Tokyo Games berth in men’s park skateboarding Friday at a Dew Tour event that is also the final Olympic qualifier.
Despite finishing 26th, the 22-year-old maintained his lead in the qualifying rankings for Japan’s lone host nation spot after Yuro Nagahara was 30th and Kensuke Sasaoka 49th. The rankings are from qualifying results since 2019.
Utah 2019 big air World Champion: N/A (cancelled)
Sierra Nevada 2017 big air World Champion: Anna Gasser (AUT)
17 years into her international career still at the absolute pinnacle of the sport, Jamie Anderson of the host U.S. squad comes into Aspen 2021 looking for one of the only titles she doesn’t yet own, as she seeks to add world champs gold to her extensive trophy case. With back-to-back Olympic slopestyle gold medals and the PyeongChang 2018 big air silver, two crystal globes, eight X Games golds, ten World Cup wins, eight US Open victories, and innumerable other accolades, Anderson’s CV is the heaviest in all of snowboarding. The 30 year-old has shown nothing but excellence once again this winter, and we expect nothing less than that from her this week in Aspen.
With both the Utah 2019 World Championships gold
and silver medallists out of this week’s Aspen 2021 world champs due to injury, and with no other women’s champions from years past slated to drop in on competition, we’re ensured of seeing a brand-new World Champion by the end of the day on Friday.
Estonia’s Kelly Sildaru will not be competing this week after injuring her knee in training for the X games big air at the end of January, while Cassie Sharpe of Canada suffered an injury mid-competition at X Games - though she still did enough before she went down to earn silver there.
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A skier competes in the 2018 Aspen Freeskiing Open at Buttermilk Ski Area. Photo by Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times.
Aspen has become the center of the freeski and snowboard universe this season, as just about every remaining major competition will be held at Buttermilk Ski Area in the coming weeks. This cycle begins Monday with the Aspen Snowmass Open, which this year is a Revolution Tour stop.
“It will certainly be a spectacular show,” said Aspen Skiing Co.’s Tyler Lindsay, one of the main organizers of this week’s event. “There is a ton of really pent-up, athletic ambition out there. People are really eager to show the new tricks they’ve been developing over this long quarantine and get back to that awesome, nervous, start-gate feeling.”