Canadian snowboarder Elizabeth Hosking capped her World Cup halfpipe season Friday the identical way she began, which was standing on the rostrum.
The 21-year-old from Longueuil, Que., finished second in Calgary’s halfpipe to Japan’s Mitsuki Ono.
Hosking earned her first profession World Cup medal — also silver — in Copper Mountain, Colo., to begin the season in December.
Ono posted a top rating of 89.75 on her second run Friday evening under the lights.
She claimed the crystal globe that goes to the season’s overall World Cup winner.
Hosking, who scored 86 on her second go through the pipe, vaulted from fourth to second within the season standings behind Ono.
“Great begin to this World Cup season with a second and I’m super joyful to complete the season with a second in Canada at home — not home-home, but in Canada on home soil,” Hosking said.
WATCH | Canada’s Hosking captures silver on home snow:
Longueuil Que., native Elizabeth Hosking finishes second on the FIS snowboard World Cup halfpipe event in Calgary.
Hosking landed an Alley Oop 540, wherein she takes off spinning in the wrong way of her downhill momentum, on her second of three runs.
“I used to be the just one to do it tonight and the judges appeared to like that quite a bit,” she said.
Switzerland’s Berenice Wicki, with a rating of 72.50, narrowly edged 17-year-old Calgarian Brooke D’Hondt’s 72.25 for bronze.
4 Canadian women reached the ultimate, but no Canadian men advanced.
Calgary’s Felicity Geremia, 15, and Jenna Walker, 17, placed seventh and eighth, respectively, in the primary World Cup finals of their careers.
‘Intense season’
Hosking competed in her fourth event in as many weeks, including January’s Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo., where she placed seventh.
Calgary’s World Cup also served as a world warm-up for the world snowboard championship starting next week in Bakuriani, Georgia.
Some skipped Calgary, nevertheless, with 11 women competing in halfpipe.
“It has been a extremely intense season,” Hosking said. “4 weeks of back-to-back of competition. Definitely, I feel going into world championships some people took slightly bit [of time] off.
Hosking placed sixth in Beijing’s Winter Olympics last 12 months.
The lads’s and girls’s finals were delayed Friday by half an hour due to wind.
“It was definitely breezy, but more so within the practice,” Hosking said.
“It really toned down quite a bit. Surprisingly, you didn’t feel it much within the halfpipe.”
WATCH | FIS snowboard halfpipe World Cup in Calgary:
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Watch the FIS snowboard World Cup halfpipe event in Calgary.
Japan’s Hirano soars to gold in men’s final
Japan’s Ruka Hirano struck gold in the boys’s final with a top rating of 88.50.
Australia’s Valentino Guseli finished 6.50 points out of first, but beat out Japan’s Shuichiro Shigeno by 0.25 for silver.
Hirano took the boys’s season crown ahead of runner-up Guseli and Australia’s Scotty James in third.
Calgary’s snowboard “Snow Rodeo” continues with men’s and girls’s slopestyle qualifying Saturday followed by Sunday’s final under the lights again.
Reigning X Games slopestyle champion Mark McMorris of Regina won’t compete in Calgary due to a scheduling conflict with Red Bull’s backcountry Natural Selection Tour.
Darcy Sharpe of Comox, B.C., who was the X Games slopestyle champion in 2020, and 2018 Olympic silver medallist Laurie Blouin of Quebec City are in the sector.