Voisin earns second in Dew Tour Slopestyle

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Whitefish freestyle skier Maggie Voisin won the jib section at the Dew Tour Slopestyle competition on Saturday at Breckenridge Ski Resort, finishing second overall after the two-day event.

Estonian 14-year-old Kelly Sildaru won the overall title with 149.33 points, entering the final day with a large enough lead to overcome Voisin’s dominant day on the rails. Sildaru scored 86.33 in the jumps section on Friday, more than 15 points higher than any other competitor and 17.34 points ahead of Voisin.

The jib section included four separate rail features, competitors judged for their style and difficulty of tricks on the total run. Skiers had three jib runs worth up to 100 points. The final score at the competition was a total of the best jib run on Saturday combined with Friday’s jump score.

On Friday, Voisin finished in third place in the jumps segment of the slopestyle competition. She landed a 540 mute grab on her fourth and final run of the day to boost her score to 68.99.

The score is a total of the best two of four one-jump runs in the competition, each jump with a possibility of 50 points.

In the new competition format, the slopestyle event is split into two days, Friday’s competition featuring only jumps and Saturday’s jib event, featuring three rail runs. The rail and jumps scores are then factored together to determine the winner.

In the past, the two segments were in the same competition, the rails leading into a series of jumps.

Estonian teenager Kelly Sildaru won the Friday event with ease, posting a score of 86.33 to take a major advantage into the rail segment. Montreal’s Kaya Turski finished in second place with a 69.66.

With fresh snow falling during the competition slowing down the runway, many of the competitors chose to start well above the start spot.

Voisin started by landing a leftside 900 toxic grab, scoring a 39.33 to briefly vault into first place. Sildaru, 14, nailed a switch 900 mute grab two runs later to score a 44.33 and take the lead for good.

Voisin attempted a switch run on her second jump but couldn’t pull it around, bailing on the trick before narrowly avoiding a cameraman on the top of the landing.

A switch trick in her third jump came up short of the landing, dropping her to sixth place ahead of her final run.

Voisin abandoned the switch attempts for her last run, opting instead for amplitude, going big on a right 540 mute grab to score a final run of 29.66 to edge into third place, totaling 68.99 in two jumps to vault over Isabel Atkin of Massachusetts, who was in third place at 67.33 at the end of competition on Friday.

Skiing in a driving snowstorm Saturday, Voisin’s two biggest scores came in her last two runs, after a sketchy landing during her first run landed her only 46 points.

She scored a 82.33 in her second run, hitting a blind swap on the first rail into a leftside 270 on/270 off the second rail. She went switch into the next rail, again going 270 on and off into a lipslide down the final rail. The score, the highest of the round to that point, pushed her into second place.

Voisin needed a score of 84.60 in her final jib run to challenge Sildaru for the lead, and threw down her best score of the day. She ran a cleaner run of the same tricks through the first three rails, only to add a 270 spin off the lipslide down the final rail, scoring an 84.33 to remain in second place. She was the only skier to score in the 80s at the event, finishing with a final score of 153.32.

“I was just so happy that I could put something down,” Voisin told DewTour.com. “Rails are not as strong as jumps for me, so I just knew I needed to land one rail run. I’m so stoked and so happy. So many girls were able to put it down over two days of tough conditions.”

Canada’s Kaya Turski finished third in the event and overall with a score of 146.99.

Voisin is scheduled for two other major events this season, X Games Aspen on Jan. 26-29 and X Games in Oslo, Norway on March 8-11.