In the early morning of January 16, Beijing time, the 2021-2022 FIS Snowboarding World Cup Lex stood in Switzerland. In the women's U-shaped field skills final, Pyeongchang Winter Olympic champion and American Chloe King won the championship with 90.25 points. China's Cai Xuetong finished seventh in the competition, but she eventually won the World Cup this season, which is also the seventh time in her career that Cai Xuetong has won the overall championship of the season. Immediately after Cai Xuetong, two Japanese players occupied second and third place in the overall World Cup standings, and the Japanese team's group advantage in the women's U-shaped field skills event was becoming increasingly obvious.
There are three world cups this season, and Cai Xuetong won the first and second places at the Copper Mountain Station and the Mammoth Mountain Station in the United States. Switzerland Lex is the last World Cup event of the season, after this game, the overall ranking of this season's World Cup and the Olympic points ranking related to the qualification of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games will be finalized, and its importance is self-evident, so the famous players from all over the world will participate enthusiastically. Among them, Pyeongchang Winter Olympics women's U-shaped track skills gold medalist Chloe King appeared on the World Cup for the first time this season, and she advanced to the final as the first place in the qualifiers, Cai Xuetong ranked second in the qualifiers, and Spanish veteran Castellet ranked fourth in the qualifiers. Of the eight players who advanced to the women's final, there were three Chinese and three Japanese players. In the final, none of the three Chinese players played at their best, with Wu Shaotong in sixth place, Cai Xuetong in seventh place, and Pyeongchang Winter Olympic runner-up Liu Jiayu eighth. Chloe King won the championship with 90.25 points in the first round of the final, Japan rookie Mitsuki Ono was runners-up with 89 points, and Castellet was third with 80 points.
Cai Xuetong (right)
After the game, Cai Xuetong's total World Cup points rose to 216 points, ranking first. Japan's Tomita Senna was second with 190 points, Mitsuki Ono was third with 175 points, and Castellet was fourth with 120 points. Wu Shaotong ranked tenth with 85 points. Chloe King has only played in Lex this season, and she is eighth with 100 points. In the end, Cai Xuetong won the seventh World Cup championship of her career. In addition to the Lex world cup, Chloe King also competed with Cai Xuetong, Castelle and others in the top commercial event this season, the Fluxus Tour, and won the championship, although the frequency of participation is not high, but her difficulty reserves and stability in high-level events are significantly higher. Several young Japanese players also have excellent difficulty reserves, including Mitsuki Ono completing a 1080-degree reverse turn at Lex Station.
A number of Japanese players joined hands to break into the U-shaped venue skills final, which is already a relatively common scene in the World Series. Of the 12 contestants in the Lex Men's U-Shaped Pitch Skills Final of the World Cup, as many as 5 Japanese players. After two rounds of fierce competition, Pyeongchang Winter Olympics runner-up and Japan's famous Hirano Bumon once again won the world cup. PyeongChang Winter Olympic champion and American star Sean White finished in third place and won his fifth chance to participate in the Winter Olympics. Several Chinese players who participated in the competition failed to reach the final, and Wang Ziyang, who achieved the best results, finished 13th. The final men's championship of the season was also won by Hirano Bumon, who ranked first in the world cup overall table with 250 points, and Japanese teenager Ryuga Hirano ranked second with 206 points.
It is worth mentioning that in the Olympic standings updated by the International Snow Federation after the game, as many as 5 female players in China ranked in the top 25 of the women's standings, and 7 entered the top 30 of the women's standings. According to the regulations, U-shaped venue skills have 25 male and female seats at the Beijing Winter Olympics, and each team can have up to 4 men and women, which means that the Chinese women's team can definitely achieve full participation. The Chinese men's team had 3 people who exceeded the Olympic points entry line.