Raibu Katayama claimed his maiden World Cup title with halfpipe victory in Cardrona ©Getty Images

It was a day of fog, falls, and East Asian success today at the International Ski Federation (FIS) Snowboard World Cup as Japan's Raibu Katayama and China's Cai Xuetong won the respective male and female halfpipe events.

Coming at the end of a week of season opening winter sport action at the Audi quattro Winter Games NZ 2015 at the Cardrona Alpine Resort, Katayama, competing in his just his third World Cup, was not considered one of the favourites.

After taking advantage of sunny conditions at the start of the competition, however, the 20-year-old produced a 90.00 point first run, with a frontside 10 tail grab, a cab double 10, a frontside 9 tail grab, a backside 9 mute, and a frontside 10 double mute grab.

As conditions deteriorated - heavy fog causing a delay before the second and third runs - a succession of big names failed to match his score.

Another Japanese star, Sochi 2014 Olympic bronze medallist Taku Hiraoka, eventually finished second, with Olympic champion Iouri Podladtchikov of Switzerland third.

“I am very happy to get the win,” said Katayama.

“This is just a start - my first win in a World Cup and I want to be on the podium a lot more in the future.

"The conditions were getting softer, it was a little bit hard to ride but I still enjoyed it very much."

Cai Xuetong completed a day of East Asian domination with victory in the corresponding women's race ©Getty Images
Cai Xuetong completed a day of East Asian domination with victory in the corresponding women's race ©Getty Images

In comparison, world champion Cai is a far more established performer, adding gold to her 2013 silver and 2011 gold in the halfpipe.

She produced a huge first run score of 88.00 for an air to fakie backside grab, a cab 7 backside, a front 5 backside grab, a back 5 mute and a front 7 indy.

Cai's biggest rivals, United States' Kelly Clark, missed out after free falls, while Japan's Hikaru Oe produced two strong runs to eventually take silver with 83.25.

France’s Sophie Rodriguez had to settle for bronze with 81.00.

The next event on the snowboard World Cup series is due to be big air competition in British capital London on November 14. 



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