Crystal Globes and podiums

It's been a big weekend for Queenstown Lakes skiers and snowboarders as they begin to wrap up their northern hemisphere winter season.

Wānaka freeskier Luca Harrington, 21, made New Zealand freeski history in Tignes, France, winning the 2025 FIS Freeski Big Air Crystal Globe as the top athlete on the 2025 FIS Big Air World Cup Tour.

And global snowboard star Zoi Sadowski-Synnott takes home the FIS Snowboard Slopestyle Crystal Globe, the first of her career for the Wānaka 24-year-old. With the final in Flachau, Austria, cancelled due to poor weather, her qualifying run secured the overall Globe win.

Meanwhile, Queenstown's Ruby Star Andrews, 20, claimed the third World Cup podium of her career, finishing third place at the FIS Freeski Slopestyle World Cup in France, the best result of her season.

Harrington was ecstatic to become the first Kiwi to win the FIS Freeski Crystal Globe.

“This is absolutely unbelievable, coming into this season I didn’t think this was even possible. To be standing here holding this globe means the world to me and I need to thank everyone who has helped me along this journey to get here, I am so grateful for this moment.”

He'd finished third in the Tignes comp, putting down a ‘never been done’ switch right triple corked 1800 with an esco grab on his first run, which was the highest scoring single trick of the competition. Harrington combined that trick with a right triple corked 1980 safety grab for a total score of 187.00 points, earning him bronze on the tightly fought podium.

Italian freeskier Miro Tabanelli took the win with a score of 188.25, just minutes after his younger sister won the women’s competition.

Out of the five Big Air World Cups that Harrington dropped into this season, he finished on the podium in four of them (two wins, a second and a third) and fourth in the other in Beijing.

“I think China kept me hungry, being so close the podium was tough and I wanted to be on there so I worked hard, trained hard and kept the consistency up," he says. "Everything really worked out this year and I am so happy.”

Despite achieving such incredible success throughout her snowboarding career so far, Sadowski-Synnott had never won a FIS Snowboarding Crystal Globe and has become only the second Kiwi to do so, after Queenstown's Tiarn Collins, who secured the men’s snowboard slopestyle Globe in 2022.

"The Globe feels pretty unreal because I’ve never had one of these before. It feels pretty good to hold one of these [the Globe]," she says.

"It wasn’t even on my mind, I just wanted to get back into this season strong and healthy coming off my ankle injury last year.”

Ruby Star Andrews' third place at the FIS Freeski Slopestyle World Cup marks her best result since November 2023 and the best of her season.

"A season's best result feels amazing for me, especially because we are into the Olympic qualifying period," she says. "I have been working super hard on my rail skiing while consolidating my jump tricks - to lace those things together and land on the podium is a dream come true."

Her runs included a 270 onto the down rail and a huge front 630 out of the up-flat rail, along with two different 900 rotations to start and finish her run.

With the FIS Park and Pipe World Championships starting next week, Andrews is feeling good going into the final event of the season. “This result feels great going into world champs. It’s something to build off, I’m really looking forward to skiing at world champs next week.”