Shaun White (USA) and Jiayu Liu (CHN) grabbed Gold at today’s first halfpipe competition of the 2010 LG Snowboard FIS World Cup which took place in Cardrona, New Zealand.

The US-American superstar of snowboarding just nailed it already in the first run of the men’s final scoring 47.1 points for his outstanding performance. Iouri Podladtchikov from Switzerland came in second (44.4) ahead of Japan’s Kazuhiro Kokubo (43.2). On the women’s side, Jiayu Liu had also established her number one position in the first run by earning 44.1 points. US girls Kelly Clark (40.5) and Gretchen Bleiler (37.1) rounded out the podium as second and third respectively.

Reigning World Cup title holder Jiayu Liu secured her career’s sixth World Cup victory due to a clean and high execution of her tricks. With a Backside Air, Frontside 540 mute, Backside 540 mute and Back-to-back 720’s the 16-years-old girl earned the highest score in the women field which made her “very happy”. “It’s nice to win the World Cup opener” said Liu.

Gretchen Bleiler