Roth and Peel seal aerials crystal globe

Roth and Peel both led the World Cup standings heading into the contest in Russia, although could still have been overhauled, but ensured that didn’t happen in the most decisive way possible.

In the men’s event, Swiss skier Roth qualified for the final with the highest score and then laid down a run that scored 127.40, edging out Russia’s Pavel Krotov by 2.97 points while Lewis Irving of Canada took bronze.

Remarkably, it was actually the first World Cup win of the 19-year-old’s freestyle skiing career but enabled him to seal the crystal globe thanks to his consistency across the season – notching three podiums in the previous six competitions.

His overall season score of 386 points was a good distance clear of second-placed Krotov (334), while another Russian – Maxim Burov – came third.

In the women’s event, Peel won her second World Cup competition of the campaign after qualifying in second spot and notching a score of 96.99 in the final.

That proved just enough to beat China’s Xu Sicun by 1.13 points, while the bronze medal went to Ashley Caldwell of the USA.

Australian 30-year-old Peel had a comfortable lead over Xu Mengtao – who won the first two events of the season but has since faltered – in the overall standings heading into the finale and only extended that, ending with 469 points.

Xu did finish second in the race for the crystal globe – 118 points back – while Belarusian skier Aliaksandra Ramanouskaya took third.

Sportsbeat 2020