Janne Korpi and Jiayu Liu win FIS halfpipe contest in Saas-Fee

Finland’s Janne Korpi and Jiayu Liu from China have won the second halfpipe contest of the LG Snowboard FIS World Cup 2009.

Despite difficult weather conditions they dominated the field in both runs. The qualification and the finals had to be held on the same day due to the heavy snowfall in the Saas valley.

Janne Korpi demonstrated faultless runs (best 45.9 points) with the combination of BS 1080 and Cap 1080 in the halfpipe of the Allalin Freestyle Park. He left Kohdai Watanabe (44.1) from Japan and his teammate IIkka-Eemeli Laari (41.9) behind. Jiayu Liu beat the other 30 ladies to the top spot with 40.7 points ahead of Shiho Nakashima (39.7) from Japan and Sophie Rodriguez (38.2) from France.

Props also to Britain’s Lesley McKenna who came fifth.

Full details on this year’s tour and calendar at www.fissnowboardworldcup.com