Rebecca Sinclair rises through the ranks

While New Zealands Christy Prior and Jossi Wells came home with gold medals from their final World Cup events ahead of Sochi 2014, Vancouver Olympian Rebecca Sinclair also threw down a top performance, finishing fourth in her event, but climbing to second in international rankings.

In the halfpipe discipline Rebecca Sinclair stepped up her performance at the Stoneham World Cup, achieving the best levels of performance so far this season, according to Snow Sports NZ Head Park & Pipe Coach, Tom Willmott. 

Rebecca placed second in her heat allowing her to move through to finals without having to contest the semi-finals rounds.

She finished in fourth place but her international World Cup rankings have risen to second (12th on official world rankings). 

In her first run Rebecca went for a big backside air first hit into a frontside 720 to cab 360, then crippler into backside 540 finishing with a crippler 720.  She had managed to land all of the components in training but it was her first time linking the run together. 

Known for her consistency in competition, Rebecca could have played things safe, but did not want to hold back or let an opportunity pass to push her riding. Rebecca went even bigger in the second run and cleaned up her execution which gave her room at the bottom of the pipe for a frontside 720.  She landed scoring a 74, and although it wasnt quite the run she wanted it was good enough to hold onto fourth place and well within the top 24 on world rankings.

Bex has had a progressive week.  We came here to further prepare for Sochi and have certainly done that, commented Coach Tom Willmott.  We are looking forward to getting back to Breckenridge to make the final adjustments to Bexs competition run and arrive in Sochi ready to compete with the best.