High-riding Stassel captures 3rd place in World Cup big air

Ryan Stassel was riding high Saturday after another high-flying big air performance.

The Anchorage snowboarder captured third place at the U.S. Grand Prix finals in Copper Mountain, Colorado – a result that gives him two podium finishes in four World Cup events this season.

Stassel, 24, pulled off a nearly flawless backside 1440 on his first run and then did a switchback double 1260 well enough on his second run to give the United States a spot on the podium along with two Canadians.

"I'm happy," he said by phone. "I'm actually really happy with how I'm riding this year, so it's a big plus."

The third-place showing matched Stassel's career-best in big air, and it came in a field loaded with many of the world's best riders.

He placed third last month at a World Cup in Pyeong Chang, South Korea, which will host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Big air will make its Olympic debut in South Korea. Stassel made his Olympic debut in 2014 in slopestyle – he's the reigning world champion in that discipline — and he hopes to compete in both events in Pyeong Chang.

Stassel finished fifth in his heat Thursday to qualify for Saturday's nationally televised 10-man finals. He had the lowest qualifying score, which made him the first rider in the finals, where riders compete in reverse order of their preliminary finishes, with the highest-scoring qualifier going last.

"The bummer about it is, going first, you're the first person the judges see," he said. "You can either get underscored or overscored, so that's kind of a nerve-racking thing."

Stassel went big and landed solidly on his first jump, earning a score of 86.75 – a score he deemed fair, and one that put him in third place.

On his second run, he didn't go as big as he had hoped, although his landing was solid. He posted a score of 80.75, which moved him into second place going into the third run.

For his third run, he tried the switchback double again — "I wanted to improve and go bigger," he said. He got plenty of air but didn't make a clean landing and scored just 69.5.

Final scores are based on a rider's two best runs, which left Stassel with a final score of 167.5. That was good enough to prevent a Canadian sweep – Max Parrot placed first (188.75), Sebastian Toutant was second (176.0) and Max Eberhart was fourth (159.5).

Olympic slopestyle gold medalist Jamie Anderson of Lake Tahoe, California, claimed the women's big air victory.

Stassel said going big and sticking the landing are equally crucial in big air, where riders perform a single trick after a snow-covered ramp launches them into the air.

"They really go hand-in-hand," he said. "You need to do a difficult trick, and you need to do it big, and you need to execute (the landing). It's the overall combined package."

Stassel, a member of the U.S. Ski Team, had competed in Italy (6th place), Germany (8th place) and South Korea prior to the Copper Mountain competition.

Competing at home provided more pressure than comfort, he said.

"For some reason, being home in the United States, things feel a little more like, 'You need to do well.' '' Stassel said.

Mission accomplished.