Competitions

Dawid Godziek wins his second slopestyle of the year.

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The second FMB Gold Event of the 2019 season saw the world's best Slopestyle athletes descend on the quaint Austrian town of Saalbach Hinterglemm, a tiny town that became the global capital of Slopestyle this weekend.

Coming off of a win at Swatch Rocket Air earlier this season and an impressive 3rd place at Crankworx Innsbruck, Dawid Godziek travelled to GlemmRide with a chip on his shoulder, but also with realistic expectations. Defending Champion Torquato Testa (ITA) and top-level Slopestyle riders such as Emil Johansson (SWE), Nicholi Rogatkin (USA), Erik Fedko (GER) and Tomas Lemoine (FRA) also travelled to Austria with a mission of their own - whether it was to defend the title or to score a win to bounce back on the season, but Dawid Godziek (POL) turned out to be the man to beat after laying down a heater of a run, scoring 92.33, and holding onto that score for the rest of the day, and making it two out of two FMB World Tour Gold Event wins this year.

Dawid Godziek managed to secure his place in the finals thanks to a stellar run earlier in the day during qualification, scoring a clean 91.66 points, sandwiched in between Emil Johansson (SWE), who scored 93.00 and Nicholi Rogatkin, whose score also reached into the 90s with a score of 90.33. Jakub Vencl (CZE) and Tomas Lemoine (FRA) also found themselves within the Top 5 after qualifying scoring 88.33 and 87.00 points respectively.

Dawid Godziek was surgical in his first finals run, looking to capitalize on his second place qualifier and looking to keep his recent high-scoring streak going.

Starting things off with a big Barspin to Tuck No Hander on the first stepdown and following that up with his now-signature Twister-No Hand, he continued down the course and hit the new boner log feature with a Cash Roll, pulled a Double Tailwhip on the infamous hotel step-up and finished his run with a Truck Driver over the road gap and a huge Double Backflip X-Up on the final jump. His score of 92.33 sky-rocketed him to the top of the leaderboard, placing him more than 5 points above Erik Fedko (GER), but would prove to be unbeatable for the rest of the night, but that's not saying other riders didn't give it their all to battle it out for first place.

Swedish rider Emil Johansson kicked things off with a Truck Driver to Inverted Turndown on the step-down and turned things up a notch with a huge Backflip Tailwhip to Barspin on the second jump. An Opposite Truckdriver to Inverted Turndown and a Fastplant 360 on the step-up put Johansson in front of the last two features - the road gap and the river jump - hitting those with a 360 Tailwhip and an Opposite 360 Tailwhip to Bar, Emil found himself sitting in 2nd place, less than 2.5 points behind Godziek. Visibly stoked in the finish area, the Swede's performance was rewarded with a clean 90.00.

After finishing 9th in qualifying, young German phenom Erik Fedko needed to go big in finals to get within striking distance of the podium - and go big is exactly what he did. Known for his huge flip and whip combinations, the crowd was electric during his run. Dropping in with a 360 Tailwhip and throwing a huge Backflip Superman Seatgrab, the first third of the course was behind him, but those that thought that the German just landed his biggest tricks were in for a surprise. A 360 Downside Whip on the boner log and an Opposite Tailwhip on the step-up put Fedko within sight of the podium - a strong finish stood between him and a potential GlemmRide win. Wowing crowds with a Double Truckdriver over the road gap, Fedko pulled his biggest combo of the day - a super steezy 360 Indian Air Seatgrab to Barspin. While his run put him on the hot seat for quite a while, Erik was bumped down two podium spots by Dawid Godziek and Emil Johansson.

The GlemmRide Top 5 was rounded out by Frenchman Tomas Lemoine, who scored 85.00 after a combo-filled run and 2018 winner Torquato Testa - who finished the day with a score of 83.33.

Traditionally, a Hero of the Weekend was also awarded during the Podium Ceremony - and the title stays in Austria after Bernd Winkler (AUT) won it in 2018. Sending it big all weekend and pushing himself to higher levels, battling from prequalies all the way to finals (in which he finished 9th with a 74.66), Peter Kaiser will now take the title back to his stomping grounds in Innsbruck.

GlemmRide Slopestyle 2019 Podium:

Dawid Godziek 92.33
Emil Johansson 90.00
Erik Fedko 86.66