This week, the aerials aces are also putting on an aerial show at the Freestyle World Championships in the Engadin. Three somersaults including five screws at a flight height of 14 m are on offer, with two Swiss athletes at the front of the pack.
26.03.2025, 04:01
26.03.2025, 07:26
SDA
Noé Roth, the defending champion, and Pirmin Werner, also an acrobat born in 2000, have big ambitions. At the main World Cup rehearsal in mid-March at the World Cup and Olympic test event in Livigno, the two finished first and third. It would be a disappointment if the Zug native and the Zurich native did not add to the medal tally from a Swiss perspective on the final day of the home World Championships.
"The self-confidence is there. I just have to continue racing the way I left off," Roth told Keystone-SDA. "I already have one World Championship title, that takes some of the pressure off me." Werner is also confident: "I have no complaints, I'm in top form. Livigno gives me an appetite for more." He is also motivated by the destination of St. Moritz: "Not every athlete can talk about a home World Championships in their career."
The somersaults and twists cannot be counted by the untrained eye and the names of the jumps also remain a mystery. Roth won in Livigno with the "Back Double Full-Double Full-Full". Translated into layman's terms: Three backward somersaults with five screws. The name is so complicated because the athletes vary the number of screws per somersault: Roth's top jump distributes these according to the 2-2-1 pattern, Werner with 2-1-2.
The top athletes from Switzerland, China, Canada, the USA, Ukraine and banned Russia have all mastered the most common variations. The decisive factor is therefore often not the degree of difficulty, but the execution: 20 percent take-off, 50 percent flight phase, 30 percent landing. The ranking is determined via qualification, final (top 12) and super-final (top 6). The crux of the matter: the same jumps may not be performed in the final and super-final and the ranking always starts from zero.
Will anyone dare to do the hurricane?
So the jumpers have to be tactical. Wind and weather, self-confidence, feeling or input from the coaches all play a role in the choice of difficulty. If the conditions are perfect, then one or two of the jumpers could attempt the hurricane, the ultimate: a somersault with one screw, a somersault with three (!) screws, followed by a somersault with one screw: "Back Full-Triple Full-Full" or 1-3-1.
Werner performed this feat in training on snow at the end of last season. "But I've never tried the jump in competition," he says. "The take-off and the finish are theoretically easy. It's the three screws in the second somersault that make it so difficult." Everything has to be right to take this risk.
Roth will not be pulling out this joker card. He has been practising for a few years now and has jumped the Hurricane on the water jump. He is also building up a second joker jump, but doesn't want to show it this week yet. In summer, the athletes train with over 1000 jumps - they are less dependent on the weather and the risk of injury is lower. Incidentally, one Russian has already managed six screws when flying into the pool.
"I feel free"
Despite the somersaults and twists, the acrobats, who generally have a background in artistic gymnastics, are in control of the situation. "It's mega nice in the air. I feel free," says Roth. And he is also aware of the interjections from his father, the coach. "The input is more of a safeguard for me. We already have time to adjust during the flight, to make the rotations faster or slower. But ultimately I do what I want up there."
