Kuhn clinches aerials ski World Championships, Curran top 10 in Switzerland

Dehlinger, Kotovskyi, and Lillis pictured here on the mens aerials podium at Deer Valley's freestyle world cup in February. Dehlinger got a silver at Switzerland's aerial world cup on March 31. Photo: TownLift // Michele Roepke

ST. MORITZ, Switzerland — Former Park City Ski & Snowboard Elite Aerial Development Program athlete Kaila Kuhn clinched the Freestyle Women’s World Championships in Switzerland on Sunday.

Kuhn was the third athlete to go in the super finals and threw a lay-full-full, a trick she had only landed in competition for the first time recently. Kuhn landed the jump and went into first place with a score of 105.13. The remaining athletes were the best of the best, but their best wouldn’t prove better than Kuhn, earning her first individual World Championships podium and win.

“This is the biggest surprise; I couldn’t be happier,” said Kuhn to U.S. Ski and Snowboard. “It has been kind of a rough season for me transitioning to triples, and this couldn’t be better icing on the cake. I trained that trick [lay-full-full] all summer, and I decided to put it down when it counted, so I’m super excited.” 

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The Michigan native was one of five Americans automatically qualifying for the finals after making it into the top six in the first jump. That followed the Olympic format, which included an extra qualification jump and an extra finals jump. Their performances allowed all five to sit out the second qualification jump to save energy for the finals the next day.

Quinn Dehlinger threw down one of the best jumps of his life in finals, scoring a huge 129.21 and earning perfect air and landing scores. With his fantastic jump one, Dehlinger took his second jump as a mini victory lap, throwing a full-full-full, qualifying in first for the super finals. Parkite Chris Lillis was bumped out of the super finals, finishing seventh.

Park City local, Connor Curran finished 10th overall, he was also on the Park City Ski & Snowboard Elite Aerial Development Program.

Dehlinger won the gold at Deer Valley’s Aerials world cup.

University of Utah athlete Dani Loeb finished in 11th place on the women’s side.