Once again, Austrian veteran Stefan Gimpl took the big air gold at the second inner-city event of the LG Snowboard FIS World Cup. Stephan took the first title a couple of weekends ago at the FIS Champs during the London Freeze Festival, and reclaimed the victory at this weekends’ competition during Barcelona’s debut hosting of the series.

Gimpl once again managed to relegate Switzerland’s Gian-Luca Cavigelli into second place with a frontside 900 that beat Cavigelli’s final score by a tenth of a point. Gimpl said “This is amazing. This was so close. Gian-Luca (Cavigelli) and me, we were even. I mean our last jumps were the same level.” He added that his nine year younger opponent from Switzerland “still has some more years to win some contests.”

Third place was taken by Norwegian Gjerund Braaten who stomped an amazing backside double cork. The 19 year old was happy with his result, claiming that “The level of riding is getting better every year. It’s very difficult to survive the qualifiers – just like today.” It seems the Norwegians had the crowd-pleasing down to a fine art, as Braaten’s fellow countryman Ulrik Badertscher earned a big up from the crowd for a double frontflip.

We’ll see if Gimpl can make it three in a row as the World Cup circus heads to Stockholm for the third Big Air instalment of this winter in two weeks time.