Ryan Stassel, a two-time Olympic snowboarder from Anchorage, placed ninth in a World Cup slopestyle competition Saturday in Kreischberg, Austria.
Stassel scored 37.95 points in the finals. The gold medal went to Norway’s Mons Roisland, who scored 88.75 points.
Second place went to Colorado’s Chris Corning with 84.75 points.
Stassel posted the third-best score in qualifying with a 78.03. Takeru Otsuko of Japan was the top qualifier with a 85.35; he finished fourth in the finals.
After two races this season, Stassel ranks seventh in the World Cup slopestyle standings.
Erik Bjornsen 33rd in Germany
No Alaskans made it to the heats in a World Cup freestyle sprint race Saturday in Dresden, Germany, but Erik Bjornsen came close.
Bjornsen placed 33rd in the morning preliminaries, which decided which 30 skiers advanced to the heats. Bjornsen missed advancing by .53 seconds in the 1.6-kilometer race.
The race marked the World Cup debuts of Hannah Halvorsen and Hailey Swirbul, who are teammates with Bjornsen on the Alaska Pacific University elite nordic team. They placed 35th and 41st, respectively, in the women’s preliminaries.
Victories went to Norway’s Sindre Bjoernestad Skar in the men’s race and Sweden’s Stina Nilsson in the women’s race.
Cooper on biathlon relay team
Kenai’s Travis Cooper will ski on the U.S. relay team Sunday at World Cup biathlon racing in Oberhof, Germany.
Cooper, who is in his rookie season on the World Cup circuit, cracked the top 100 in a Friday 10-kilometer sprint race. He finished nearly five minutes behind winner Alexander Loginov of Russia, who shot cleanly. Cooper missed four of 10 targets, meaning he had to ski four penalty laps, each 150 meters in distance.