With Jiayu Liu (CHN) and Ryoh Aono (JPN) two of the main favorites grabbed the half-pipe title at the 2009 FIS Snowboard World Championships Gangwon, Korea presented by LG. Both titles were the first ones for Asian riders in the history of so far eight FIS World Championships. Liu nailed it in the second run of the ladies' final after she made several mistakes on her first run. With 43.5 points, the shooting star relegated Holly Crawford (AUS, 39.6) and Paulina Ligocki (POL, 38.5) to the second and third ranks respectively.

On the men's side, Aono simply confirmed his top performances from the training and qualifying sessions. The 18-year-old rider threw in the best runs in both heats earning 47.3 points to win gold. Jeff Batchelor (CAN, 44.4) and Mathieu Crepel (FRA, 43.3) rounded out the podium as second and third so the top-3 consisted of those riders who had won all four half-pipe World Cups in the same pipe before.

FIS
23/01/2009

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