Australian teen snowboard ace Valentino Guseli has underlined his phenomenal talent with another World Cup crystal globe as the season's overall park and pipe champion.
The 18-year-old sealed his triumph by winning bronze in the slopestyle event on Saturday's final day of the season at the Swiss resort of Silvaplana.
The overall title goes to the athlete who achieves the best combined results from halfpipe, big air and slopestyle events over the season, as Guseli did in 2023 with his historic triumph as a 17-year-old from the NSW coastal town of Dalmeny.
This time, victory had looked less likely as Guseli was trailing Ryoma Kimata in the standings, needing both a big performance and an unlikely calamity from the Japanese rider.
But in slopestyle qualifying, Kimata endured his worst display of the season, finishing in 50th place while Guseli powered into the final in first place.
Having to then finish in the top-four to seal the triumph, Guseli had two consistent runs in the final, opening with a score of 77.31 and improving to 83.77 on the second to take the bronze behind Canada's Liam Brearley (88.10) and Japan's Taiga Hasegawa (88.52).
“I am super-stoked with the way today went, in my second run I landed one of the best runs of my life,” said Guseli, who now has three crystal globes to his name after having also won the big air title in 2023.
“Got on the podium and got the globe, which was my main goal, and from my side I don’t think today could have gone much better, I am super proud of my performance.
“To win the overall, which means to be the most consistent out of all three freestyle disciplines, I am honoured to have won it for the second year in a row.
“Before I dropped for my second run I was pretty sure that I had done enough to win the globe already, but also I wanted to win the comp.
"So I went out and I put down my best run. I didn’t win the comp, but that got me on the podium, which I’m happy with and it made the globe a certainty."
On another fine weekend for Australian winter sports athletes, Cameron Bolton took silver in the World Cup snowboard cross big final in Mont-Sainte-Anne in Canada, which leaves him lying third overall in the season's standings with one event left.
