Emil Johansson wins fourth-straight Innsbruck Slopestyle
Crankworx kicks into high gear with weekend's main events
Photo by:
Clint Trahan / Crankworx
When Emil Johansson wrapped up the gold medal in Saturday’s Crankworx Innsbruck Slopestyle, it marked an incredible fourth-straight win in Austria for the young Swede. The road to this incredible streak has been anything but straightforward, though.
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For the 21-year-old, who celebrates his birthday Sunday, it solidifies his incredible comeback from a long struggle with autoimmune disease.
“It’s honestly amazing,” Johansson said from the finish corral. “It’s been more than a year since last time, so to be back and, first of all, to see everyone, but also be able to get a full, real show together has been amazing. I’ve been longing for this one since last March. It feels awesome.”
Johansson took gold with a winning score of 97.5, from a highly technical run executed with precision. Tying all that together into one run had been the young rider’s goal.
“It’s the whole package that I do, with stuff back-to-back. It really ties the bag together for me. It’s what makes me really satisfied with my performance.”
Emil Johansson – Crankworx Innsbruck Slopestyle winning run
Second place finisher Nicholi Rogatkin of the United States, played out his run in an opposite manner. While he didn’t get the win, he walks away from Innsbruck with the satisfaction of pulling off a single, near-impossible trick. The U.S. rider finally pulled off an Oppo Cashroll in competition.
“I feel amazing about the opposite cashroll,” Rogatkin said after. “It’s a trick that I’ve worked really hard on. Doing tricks opposite is something that’s very necessary in Slopestyle and, for me, that type of stuff is really hard. I’m way better at working on big rotations, big, exciting tricks. So this was kind of a mix. It was opposite but it was still kind of wild and exciting, so I had a lot of motivation to work on it. I worked on it for a couple years, and this is actually the first place I’ve ever done it on dirt…so it was a lot of relief of pressure that I could put a big, opposite maneuver in my run. That felt amazing.”
Torquato Testa of Italy set his third place score of 93.25 on his first run. It was enough for the young Italian to hold off the rest of the competition.
