Chumpy Pullin and Jarryd Hughes continue strong World Cup season

Australia is on the way to a record World Cup season.

Alex Pullin celebrates in Germany.

Our winter sports team is on the way to a record World Cup season after snowboard cross riders Alex “Chumpy’’ Pullin and Jarryd Hughes produced the first Australian quinella in their event at Feldberg, Germany yesterday.

A day after an early exit in the first World Cup race at Feldberg, dual world champion Pullin roared back to the top of the podium, dominating throughout the rounds to win his first World Cup event of the season.

Last year’s X Games winner, Hughes, 21, was slowest out of the gate but successfully avoided a crash midway through the race to seal second place, his best World Cup result for four years.

Their success brings Australia’s World Cup medal tally for the weekend to five as the pair joined moguls skier Britt Cox (gold), snowboard cross rider Belle Brockhoff (silver) and ski cross specialist Sami Kennedy-Sim (silver) on the podium.

The Australian medal count for the season now stands at 23 (plus world halfpipe champion Scotty James’ victory at the X Games in Aspen), just two short of the record haul of 25 from the 2012-13 season, with a lot of this season yet to unfold.

In the year before the next Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, it would take a sudden and unlikely loss of form by a number of athletes to prevent the current group of winter athletes from breaking that record in the next few weeks.

Pullin, 29, has had some near-misses in finals this season and was thrilled to finally breakthrough for a win at Feldberg. He said it felt “bloody awesome’’.

“I’ve had a couple of frustratingly close races this season, it’s really nice to get a win,’’ he said.

“I came out pretty fired up. It was always going to be a long day and it was really important to put down a fast run in the heat.”

He was the fastest qualifier by almost half a second and took that confidence into the elimination rounds.

“To be able to pull that sort of margin gave me a boost. I raced a final in that first heat.

“To turn Saturday’s bad race day to a good one the next day was important to me. I knew I had the potential and I had to prove it to myself.

“Racing is incredibly close at the moment. One of the best things was that I got to race all the best guys and beat the World Cup leader not once but twice.

“I wouldn’t have wanted to be anyone else today when I was in the gate. Winning was exactly what I wanted. To turn it around after yesterday makes me really happy.”

Australia had three men in the top eight as Adam Lambert made an excellent World Cup debut to finish seventh.

Women’s World Cup leader Brockhoff fell just short of the podium, when she was denied third place in a photo-finish.

However a second and a fourth at Feldberg was still a strong result and enabled her to hold her place at the top of the World Cup standings after two victories earlier in the season.

Australia’s stellar World Cup season in the freestyle and snowboard disciplines is set to continue when the snowboarders take to the Olympic halfpipe at PyeongChang this week.