Canadian snowboarder Laurie Blouin wins slopestyle world title
Belgium's Seppe Smits wins men's title
Canada's Laurie Blouin scored a snowboard slopestyle world title at the world championships in Sierra Nevada, Spain, on Saturday.
The native of Stoneham, Que., scored a 78.00 on her second run, narrowly holding off New Zealand's Zoi Sadowski Synnott (77.50), as well as defending champ Miyabi Onitsuka from Japan (77.40).
Blouin landed a switch-backside 180 on her first jump, a frontside 540 on her second, a cab-900 double on her third and a backside-360 on her last jump to earn the top score.
A last-minute change in her routine, brought on by an uninspiring practice run, convinced her to swap a complicated switch-backside 540 for a much simpler opening jump.
The change paid off.
"I was landing it [in practice] but it wasn't looking good," Blouin said. "I'd rather do a smaller trick and it looks good and everything is perfect than do a trick that's kind of sketcky. So I changed that and I was happy about it."
She added: "I honestly didn't know if my run was good enough [for gold]. It was hard to tell because my last jump was really short, the speed got slower so I didn't go too deep. But I had a double in my run and there's not too many girls who do a double."
The newly-crowned world champion credits the "vibe" in Sierra Nevada, and visualizing a clean run
"I was not that stressed because the weather is so incredible here [and] the vibe is so fun," Blouin told CBC Sports. "Before I dropped [in] I was super focused and I told myself I was just going to drop [in] and just have fun."
Canada's Brooke Voigt finished seventh with 46.15.
On the men's side, Belgium's Seppe Smits rode to gold with an astounding 91.40, ahead of Switzerland's Nicolas Huber (83.25) and Chris Corning of the United States (82.50).
Canada's Francis Jobin finished 11th with 66.60.
With files from the Canadian Press