New Zealand's Sadowski-Synnott, Japan's Hasegawa soar to big air World Cup gold in Edmonton

No Canadians made it to the podium at Saturday night's FIS World Cup big air snowboard event at Commonwealth Stadium. But the night saw some snowboarding history being made.

New Zealand's Zoi Sadowski-Synnott struck gold in the women's event, while Japan's Taiga Hasegawa won the men's final.

Sadowski-Synnott earned her gold by acing a jump that, before this weekend, had never been tried before in women's snowboarding.

She stunned many of her fellow riders when she nailed a switchback 1260 and got a whopping 99 out of 100 in qualifying. She tried it with her first jump in the finals, but fell.

She tried it again with jump No. 2, got a 97.25 score, and never looked back.

"That trick hasn't been done in competition before, so I didn't really know what to expect," said Sadowski-Synnott, who took silver at the 2022 Winter Olympics big air competition. "I'm super-hyped on the score."

But, after missing that first jump, she knew the pressure was on. Two of the three jumps count toward the final score, so she left herself no margin for error.

Hasegawa hit all three of his tricks, all five-rotation 1800s, to win the men's event. China's Su Yiming, winner of gold in big air at the 2022 Olympics, finished second. After taking a year off, American Redmond Gerard returned to World Cup competition in Edmonton and collected the bronze.

Nicolas Laframboise of Saint Jean, Que., was the top men's finisher in qualifying, but finished sixth. He wowed the crowd in 2022 when he earned bronze, while wearing a blue Edmonton Oilers alternate jersey while he completed his tricks. This year, he added a bright orange Oilers helmet to the wardrobe.

And he put on a show — he began his first run by coming to a stop 20 feet out of the gate. He raised