Darcy Sharpe rides to first career slopestyle World Cup victory

At 27 years of age, Darcy Sharpe can call himself a World Cup champion in the freestyle discipline he loves most.

The Whistler-based snowboarder distinguished himself in Calgary, Alta. on Feb. 12, securing the inaugural FIS World Cup gold medal of his career. His score of 88.50 points was one of the highest ever earned in a section-by-section judging format, where it's notoriously hard to achieve scores approaching the 90s due to each element of the riders’ runs being judged separately and eligible for deductions.

“I was trying to have a heavy rail section,” Sharpe explained in a press release. “Especially in a rail-dominated course, you’ve gotta make the most of it, and I love rails so I was trying to max those out. But man, that one run I was just in the flow, locking into everything and it felt so good.

“It’s my first World Cup win since 2015, but that was actually a big air, so this is my first slopestyle World Cup win and it means a lot to me just to have that on the mantle. It’s epic. And to have my family here, friends flew out, homies everywhere…I couldn’t be more stoked.”

Sharpe brought home the bacon with the second of his three runs. Leading things off with a gap switch backside 270 lipslide on the down-flat-down rail, the Comox, B.C. native then went gap switch hardway 270 on to 270 off on the flat down, and then into a frontside lipslide 270 out, which he gapped from the rainbow rail takeoff over to the long downrail.

Into the jumps Sharpe polished off his masterpiece, first with a frontside triple cork 1440 weddle, and then a backside triple cork 1440 weddle, before wrapping it all up with a backside rodeo 720 weddle out on the cannon rail.

He had the luxury of a victory lap on his final attempt, as no one was able to conquer both the rails and the jumps with the same degree of skill he did. 

Silver went to Dusty Henricksen from the United States, who earned a score of 82.66. Cameron Spalding of Moonstone, Ont. rounded out the podium with a 77.33-point effort at just 17 years old. 

Fellow Canadians Liam Brearley and Truth Smith also qualified for the final, finishing 13th and 18th, respectively. 

On the women's side

With the sun breaking through the clouds, unseasonably warm temperatures on Sunday morning, and a unique, Charles Beckinsale-designed course in prime shape, all the pieces were in place for a day to remember at Calgary’s Winsport Canada Olympic Park.

Julia Marino of Team USA grabbed the bull by the horns going into the women's final as top qualifier. She kept that momentum rolling straight into her first run of the day.

Opening with frontside boardslide 270, the 25-year-old continued to pick her way through the multifaceted rail sections with a 50-50 to fronstside lipslide to fakie, then a switch backside bluntslide 270 out before heading into the course’s two jumps.

There, she threw down a cab double cork 900 weddle and a backside 720 melon, before finishing things off with a backside bluntslide 270 melon off the final rail for a score of 78.36 and her seventh career World Cup win.

With the victory, Marino takes over top spot on the FIS snowboard slopestyle World Cup standings from Reira Iwabuchi, with Marino now holding a virtually unassailable 83-point lead over her Japanese counterpart with only one slopestyle competition left in the 2022-23 season.

“I’m feeling pretty good about my riding right now,” Marino said in a release. “This is a super fun course. I had a blast this week riding this. We got a ton of time on course to feel it out and get comfortable on it and put some stuff down. I wanted to go backside 1080 on my final lap but I got a little too hyped up, maybe went a little too big on my cab 900, maybe landed a little weird, so…I would have loved to have got a back 10 in there but oh well, there will be other opportunities for that.”

Two Canadians, including one Sea to Sky athlete, joined Marino on the podium. Laurie Blouin of Quebec City, Que. fought her way to second place with a score of 76.41, while Jasmine Baird of Whistler made a strong return to competition after a brief injury break to earn third. Baird fell just short of her fellow Canadian with 76.21 points.

Blouin’s silver was her third in three Snow Rodeo competitions since the slopestyle World Cup returned to Calgary in 2019-20 after an almost decade-long absence. Baird’s bronze was her third podium of the 2022-23 campaign, to go along with her third-place big air showing in Chur, Switzerland and her landmark victory in Edmonton, Alta.