Chris Lillis wins Ultimate Airwave, FIS’s summer aerials into the UOP pool

An aerials competitor, upside down, above it all, at the Utah Olympic Park in the FIS Ultimate Airwave. Photo: Michele Roepke // TownLift

PARK CITY, Utah — On Saturday, The Utah Olympic Park (UOP) hosted the Ultimate Airwave, an FIS sanctioned Grand Prix summer freestyle aerials international competition.

RESULTS:

• Men

1. Chris Lillis (USA) score 133.00
2. Yifan Zhang (CHI) score 132.60
3. Xindi Wang (CHI) score 132.09

• Women

1. Marion Thenault (CAN) score 110.18
2. Laura Peel (AUS) score 108.18
3. Meiting Chen (CHI) score 102.31

Japan, and Switzerland were also represented.

American men also placed 5th, 9th, 10th, 17th, 24th, 26th, 27th, and 28th. The women placed 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 12th, and 13th.

Thenault won a bronze medal in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and Peel is a three-time Olympian who has been her country’s Games flag bearer. 

Watch one of the the winning jumps from Olympic gold medalist Lillis.

The technical delegate was Chris “Hatch” Haslock, program director for Park City Ski and Snowboard.

Christine Hind, executive director of Park City Ski and Snowboard, only had to walk about 15 steps from her office to watch her daughter compete.

Malorie Irvin is the U.S. Ski and Snowboard’s event director for freestyle and alpine. She told TownLift, “This is a great crowd here today, more spectators than we actually expected. It’s fun to have this event is back to its original name since its been held here in the ’90s. This is perfect experience before we’ll be sending them onto snow at the Deer Valley World cup in February.” 

This Freestyle Aerials Grand Prix circuit started in Switzerland this summer, stopped here in Utah, and will wrap up in Australia.