Wānaka teen slides to snowboard bronze at World Champs

"It feels great."

That's the quote from Wānaka 17-year-old Rocco Jamieson, after he presented a clean run to claim the snowboard slopestyle bronze medal at the 2024 FIS Slopestyle and Big Air Junior World Championships underway in Italy.

The teen says he feels "blessed" be competing at the event after a challenging season training in the Northern Hemisphere.

"It has been pretty tough with the weather this season in Europe for training, but I got some good time competing and training at the Silvaplana World Cup last week so I was ready to compete here.” 

Rocco put down a clean run on the two rail, two jump course. He laced together a front blunt, 450 out into a cab 270 on, 450 out on the two rails. On the jumps he stomped a switch backside double corked 1260 into a frontside 1080 to be rewarded with a score of 87.00. 

“The course was amazing, the jumps and the rails were really well built. It’s a sick park here,” Rocco says.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn Depriest of the United States of America took the win with a score of 91.00, with Romain Allemand of France finishing in second place with a score of 89.00, while fellow Kiwi competitor Txema Mazet-Brown, 18, of Raglan, who competed in the finals alongside Rocco, finished in seventh place. 

This latest placing marks Rocco’s second Junior World Championships medal in the past 12 months – he also secured a silver medal in Big Air at the 2023 FIS Park and Pipe World Championships held at Cardrona in August as part of Winter Games NZ. 

There are five Kiwi athletes representing New Zealand at the 2024 Big Air and Slopestyle Junior World Championships – Brodie Bamford is also competing in the snowboard events and brothers Fletcher and Fergus McArthur are competing in the Freeski events. 

The FIS Slopestyle and Big Air Junior World Championships continue on Friday, New Zealand time, with the snowboard big air qualifications, followed by the freeski big air qualifications on Saturday, New Zealand time. The finals will be held on Sunday, New Zealand time. 

Main image (Supplied/Fabio Borga): Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle top five, from left, Brooklyn Depriest, of the USA, in first, Romain Allemand, of France, in second, Rocco Jamieson, in third, Pyry Posio, of Finland, in fourth, and Eli Bouchard, of Canada in fifth.