The three snowboarders from Canada that qualified for the half-pipe finales in Sungwoo, Korea this Saturday unfortunately didn’t take a stand up to the podium. Justin Lamoureux, Crispin Lipscomb, and Sarah Conrad.

Amoung the twelve male finalists, Squamish, British Columbia’s Lamoureux was the highest ranking Canadian, taking sixth as a result of the first of his two descents, where he earned 38.6 points. Today’s results were his best World Cup result since his fourth place finish in March 2005 at the Lake Placid World Cup.

Lipscomb earned 36.6 points on his first descent in the finals, placing him tenth overall. Ottawa native Lipscomb has not participated in a Fédération Internationale du Ski (FIS) competition since the World Championships of January 2007, where he finished sixth.

Japanese athlete Ryoh Aono garnered his second victory (46.6) this season, and now takes the second place overall in the Half-Pipe World Cup standings. Swiss snowboarder Iouri Podladtchikov (44.0) finished third today, but remains atop the World Cup standings list, whilst American Gregory Bretz took the second step on the podium (45.1) in Korea.

Lamoureux and Lipscomb themselves are sitting in 15th and 36th place in the Half Pipe World Cup standings.

Ontarian Jeff Batchelor barely missed qualifying for the final, ending up in thirteenth place, a mere 0.06 of a point from Lamoureux, who was the last to qualify. Charles Reid, 17th, Brendan Davis, 19th, Gabriel Dussault, 29th, and Ryan Rausch, 32th, rounded out the Canadians participating today.

Difficulty for the National Vice Champion

Sarah Conrad finished sixth in the finals; the Nova Scotian earned 31.0 points on her second descent.

Chinese snowboarder Jiayu Liu won the competition with 40.6 points, beating both Japanese athlete Soko Yamaoka (36.8) and American Lindsay Jacobellis (36.6).

British Coloumbia’s Mercedes Nicoll was seventh, slightly behind Japanese athlete Shiho Nakashima who was sixth and the last qualified for the finals this Saturday.

Katie Tsuyuki, 13th, Alexandra Duckworth, 16th, Charmaine Ironside, 19th, and Dominique Vallée, 21st, were also participating in the event.

The World Cup in Sungwoo, Korea continues Sunday with the Parallel Giant Slalom event; Caroline Calvé, Alexa Loo, Kimiko Zakreski, Jasey-Jay Anderson, Patrick Farrell, Michael Lambert and Matthew Morison will be competing.