The Burton US Open at Vail, CO: Day 2
Module: gallery_album
Item: USO2013_slopesemis
Displays the photo gallery for a selected Gallery Album.I was sitting in the hot tub Tuesday night watching the gondola spin—little specks of light lacing their way up a cut in the mountainside. A red tail fox ran by no more than ten feet away with something in its mouth. Hard to say whether it was organic game or not, but he seemed to be on a mission. Ten minutes later he traipsed past again, making his nightly rounds, maybe returning for round two of dinner for his family back in the den. It was about then that light snow stopped falling and stars appeared through the steam—a good sign for today’s slope semis.
Bluebird. I cracked the shades to bright sunlight. Expecting Rocky Mountain bitterness, an open window revealed it was actually quite mild, given the time of year, hovering around 20 degrees. Up the Riva Bahn Express, over the well-sculpted terrain park and down to the venue, I found the women warming up. They were having a hard time with speed. I wonder whether they had tuned for colder, icier conditions—if it weren’t for the dry air, the weather felt more like a crisp day in coastal mountains than February in the Rockies.
Those that didn’t speed check were rewarded. It was painful watching so many of the female competitors knuckle the first jump, but the few who pointed it through were floating stylish spins. This had nothing to do with course design, however—a few rail options led into a large-to-small wallride option, that redirected riders into a final couple jibs before a three pack of booters. I’m pretty sure the announcer said they started around 50 feet and ended around 70, which seemed about right.
Then, around 11:30, the men began to drop—42 competitors from 12 different countries. They quickly established that speed wasn’t going to be an issue, sending the jumps 20 feet past the knuckle, some overshooting, but coming out unscathed due to 100-foot landings. Nice work, Snowpark Technologies. Rather than give you a blow-by-blow of who did what trick, I’ll just offer some general notes.
1. When it comes to jibbing, 270s are mandatory. Hardway, switch, on, off, or both, if the majority of your rail tricks don’t involve a full rotation and some kind of variation, you’re not going to make the finals at the US Open.
2. Double corks aren’t always the answer. Though most of the men were throwing some form of double-stunt, flat spins still look better most of the time, and my favorite move of the semis was Chas Guldemond ripping a method 100 feet off the last jump after falling earlier in his run. Some contest riders still got soul.
3. Speaking of Chas, he’s definitely one of the older dudes in the contest—around ¾ of the field was born in the 90s. It’s no wonder most slope riders move on to other things around their mid-20s. You need to see top level slope riding in person to understand just how gnarly it is these days—the impact of a stomped landing would echo across the mountainside, let alone the impact of a slam. Watching Gjermund Braaten power out a landing 40 feet past the knuckle may have been the most impressive thing I saw all day. I’m guessing there are a lot of physical therapists in attendance.
4. The semis weren’t without drama. With just Guldemond and defending champion Seb Toots left to drop, both were on the outside looking in. Guldemond threw down a clean run, closing it out with a flat 1080 stomped clean. Toots fell on a routine lipslide near the top of the course, missing out on the finals. So it goes.
Day one of competition at the 2013 Burton US Open at Vail, CO is in the books. Check back tomorrow for a report from pipe semis—as I look outside my window, it’s snowing again. I’m still off to by some more sunscreen, because my northwest tan sure isn’t used to blue skies in the alpine.
Women’s Slopestyle Semi-Final Results:
1. Spencer O’Brien CAN, NIKE, 75.33
2. Jamie Anderson USA, BILLABONG, 74.88
3. Brooke Voigt CAN, 32 SNOWBOARD BOOTS, 70.08
4. Sarka Pancochova CZE, FLOW, 69.53
5. Christy Prior NZL, BURTON, 63.53
6. Shelly Gotlieb NZL, BURTON, 62.00
Men’s Slopestyle Semi-Final Results:
1. Torstein Horgmo NOR, DC SHOE CO USA, 87.93
2. Eric Willett USA, VANS, 84.26
3. Yuki Kadono JPN, RIDE, 83.88
4. Mark McMorris CAN, BURTON, 83.43
5. Chas Guldemond USA, ROCKSTAR, 81.25
6. Peetu Piiroinen FIN, NIKE, 80.63
7. Maxence Parrot CAN, O’NEILL, 80.28
8. Stale Sandbech NOR, OAKLEY, 80.03
9. Sage Kotsenburg USA, NIKE, 79.28
10. Ryan Stassel USA, BURTON, 77.23
11. Jamie Nicholls GBR, NIKE, 75.03
12. Darcy Sharpe CAN, MONSTER, 74.98