Wanaka snowsports athlete Miguel Porteous has won gold in the freeski halfpipe at the Aspen stop of the US Revolution tour this morning (Wednesday February 24).

Miguel laced together a highly technical run that consisted of a switch right ally-oop 540, switch left double ally-oop 900, switch left 720, right double cork 1260 and a left double cork 1260.

He received an impressive score of 93.75 for his first run of the finals and was untouchable for the rest of the event.   

“I had a cool day; we’ve been training in this pipe in Aspen for a while now and today was perfect,” Miguel said.

“The weather was insane, and it was really cool to ski in the pipe with Birk, Hunter, Jaxin and Hunter. The standard of skiing was so high today - the run that I landed today was arguably better than the runs I have landed in World Cups and X Games competitions.”

Four times X Games medallist Birk Ruud (NOR) took the silver medal position with a score of 92.50 with Hunter Hess (USA) rounding out the podium in third with a score of 90.00.  

Fellow Kiwi Ben Harrington, also of Wanaka, finished in fifth place today in the halfpipe. 

The FIS Freeski and Snowboard World Championships will be held in Aspen from March 7-16. 

Miguel said he is feeling “super confident in the pipe, because of today’s result and because we have had awesome training with great weather”. 

With the Covid-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on the regular World Cup circuit and many athletes keen for opportunities to compete, the Aspen stop of the US Revolution tour was heavily stacked. All three of the athletes on the podium have competed at the prestigious X Games over the last couple of years, with both Miguel and Birk X Games medallists.    

Thursday morning Kiwis Ben Barclay, Luca Harrington and Margaux Hackett (all Wanaka) will compete in Freeski Big Air and Cool Wakushima and Tiarn Collins (Queenstown) will compete in Snowboard Slopestyle from 5am NZT.