Juuso Laivisto wins the 10th 5Star TTR Red Bull Nanshan Open

In his third appearance at the event, Finnish rider Juuso Laivisto claimed his second first-place finish at China’s 5Star TTR Red Bull Nanshan Open. “It’s been awesome to see how the event has grown the last years, since I won it the first time, when it was still a 4Star. I was stoked with my win, it was definitely heavy competition today. The others were just a little unfortunate I think.” Juuso said. 2nd in this last 5Star Slopestyle competition before the World Snowboarding Championships in February, was Sam Hulbert (USA), before Roope Tonteri (FIN) rounding up the podium.

With judges including Michi Albin, Ingemar Bachman and Scotty Wittlake in charge of narrowing yesterday’s 12 top-ranked riders down to four for the afternoon’s Super Finals, the level of riding was significantly elevated from the qualification round as riders gave their all for promises of fame, glory and of course the TTR points and prize money. After two runs each, USA’s Sam Hulbert would enter the Super Finals ranked first, followed by Juuso Laivisto, Roope Tonteri (FIN) and Teddy Koo (KOR).

Juuso Laivisto claimed first place on his second run, going huge with back-to-back bs900 mute, followed by a 50-50 to method on the polejam, bs lipslide on the downrail finishing off in style with a tweaked out fs360 nosebonk on the Red Bull cube. Roope Tonteri (FIN) unfortunately was unable to stomp what could have been a first place run, landing a cab900 indy but reverting out on his impressive bs1260 mute attempt – still finishing his run off in style with a switch boardslide 270out on the polejam and a lipslide 270out on the downrail, enough for third place. Sam Hulbert took second with a bs720 to fs1080 on the kickers and was the only rider to hit the jib section’s oversized-pipe with a 50-50 to bs360 out.

The TTR Worldtour Slopestyle Ranking sees Roope Tonteri still holding on to his leading position, followed now by newcomers in the top 3 Sam Hulbert an Maxence Parrot (CAN).
The Overall ranking list sees no changes in the lead, but with his 3rd place in Nanshan, Roope managed to climb to the top 3 here as well.

The TTR World Tour will continue on the 5Star level with the Burton Canadian Open from January 30th – till February 4th. Afterwards, all moves to Europe for the Final Big Air competition of the season, the 6Star Billabong Air & Style in Innsbruck, where the Big Air Tour Champion will be crowned. The RedBull Nanshan Open was the last 5Star opportunity for men to gain Slopestyle points to qualify for the World Snowboarding Championships in Oslo, 10-19 February.
Till January 23rd riders can still gather some points on the 1-3Star level, for the complete event schedule please go to www.ttrworldtour.com/events