Jamie Anderson Returns To Competition With Slopestyle Win At Laax Open

Jamie Anderson competes at the Dew Tour Copper Mountain on Feb. 6, 2020 in Copper Mountain, Colo.

Two-time Olympic champion Jamie Anderson threw down a strong second run to win the women's slopestyle snowboarding world cup Friday at the Laax Open in Switzerland.
Competing in an FIS event for the first time in nearly a year, Anderson posted the top score in Wednesday’s qualifying session, then went toe-to-toe with 2019 world champion Zoi Sadowski-Synnott of New Zealand in the main event Friday.
Anderson edged Sadowski-Synnott in the semifinal round, with the 30-year-old Anderson taking first and 19-year-old Sadowski-Synnott second. With the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 just over a year away, Anderson felt the significance of the win.
“This is super important,” Anderson said on the television broadcast. “I am only doing a couple of events (this year), maybe this and X Games. I am so proud of myself riding with all these youngsters.”
Sadowski-Synnott got off to an early lead in the final, however, scoring 82.96 points to Anderson's 74.66. But Anderson, who is the two-time defending Olympic champion in the event, threw down a clean second run that scored 84.35 points to win.
Sadowski-Synnott finished second with her score from the first run, while Australia's Tess Coady was third with 74.18 points. Fellow American Hailey Langland also reached the finals but finished last in the first run and did not ski a second. 
The competition was Anderson's first FIS event since Feb. 1, 2020, when she won the slopestyle world cup at Mammoth Mountain in California. She now has 10 world cup wins, with two coming in big air.
In the men's slopestyle competition that followed, Jake Canter was the top finisher for Team USA, making the final and placing sixth.
The Laax Open continues this weekend with men's and women's halfpipe snowboarding on Saturday, where Olympic champion Chloe Kim is expected to compete.