Burton European Open Finals: Lisa Wiik & Danny Davis win Slopestyle
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"Holy Shit!" That was Danny Davis' reaction as he was awarded his kitsch and chunky, flamingo coloured award at the top of the BEO Slopestyle podium today. Those two words popped out of many more mouths watching the competition that day too.
While pipe competitions are impressive, Slopestyle is the real crowd-pleaser. In preparation for a full-on day of competition, both qualified and invited riders were at the top of Laax's Crap Sogn Gion at 8am this morning to practise the runs they hoped would impress. Not such a hard life you may think, but when faced with the biggest kickers the BEO's ever seen - icy, hard-packed and intimidating - it'd take much more than your daily dose of caffeine for 99 percent of us to get through this early morning obstacle.
After training, first up were the Men's Slopestyle semi finals. Tuesday's Halfpipe semi finals were a close indicator of who'd stand out today; but which of Burton's all-star team - Shaun White, Kevin Pearce, Danny Davis, Peetu Piiroinen or new boy Charles Reid - would take the double SS?
Peetu Piiroinen
With the world's best snowboarders in this tiny Swiss resort, the inventive course kept things interesting: a wooden spine and bin jib feature, was followed by a wall ride, down rail and adjacent down box, a huge halfpipe feature then three colossal kickers - apparently the biggest Laax has ever built.
Chosen from the best of two runs, semi-finalists needed to stomp a 1080 spin to make finals - which threw up some surprises: Kevin Pearce, top place qualifier in pipe, failed to get through, despite a front 720, backside nine and cab 720 finals after not landing despite front. Kicker king David Benedek (famous for double corked 1260s) was also out, suffering with flu.
The women's semi finals were also stellar, with the Europeans - especially Laax local Sina Candrian - killing it. US snowboarders Chanelle Sladics, Jamie Anderson and Alexis Waite weren't quite feeling it though, as Jamie was feeling the effects of a nasty crash in the previous day's pipe semi-finals, while Roxy rider Waite crashed, whacking her leg and (luckily helmeted) head.
As well as divine number-2s, epic is another word you could use for the final. With finalists judged on the best of three runs, and the world's finest up against each other, it was uber tight - with podium places down to the very last runs of eight women and sixteen men.
The laps started with the ladies. Dutch Volcom rider Cheryl Maas showed off her ballsy, big kicker prowess - but didn't nail the pipe section. Czech Red Bull rider Sarka Pancochova continued her epic season, which started at the Chicken Jam, as one of the first girls to go off the bigger jumps - pushing the others to step up their game - and stomping 720s. Another surprise finalist was 15-year-old Trondheim, Norway, talent Silje Norendal, confident beyond her years. Expect to see much more of her in the next few years.
Fellow Norwegian Kjersti Buaas' experience in the pipe helped her nail the course: her stylee and big Alley Oops, frontside 360 spins and frontside 720 mute grab took her into third place. From Flims, just down the valley, Burton rider Sina Candrian was a huge surprise: used to riding the Laax park she stomped the only frontside 9 of the contest. First place was also interesting and by two-tenths of a point, not usually the biggest contest success, Roxy's Lisa Wiik proved that snowboarding isn't all about the latest young gun teens: aged 29, she hit the bigger jumps to land huge McTwists, backside 540s and frontside 360s.
And the guys? With a high Scandinavian contingent also in the final, and with riders stomping almost the same repertoire of tricks the final three (a Burton trio) were less than a point apart.
Shaun White
After two runs, snowboarder-star-turned-international-brand Shaun White had a nice easy lead with eight points. But, after middling his first two runs, Danny Davis exploded on his finale landing a backside corked 360 hand-plant on the log jib, a switch backside lipslide, huge switch backside 720 nosegrab and backside 720 mute grab in the pipe, plus a switch backside 900 mute, a frontside 1080, a 180 on the roller, ending with a Cab 900. Shaun's response? Starting strong he crashed on his last run after the second jump - putting Danny in the lead. The last run of the day was down to Fin Peetu Piiroinen (current champ of the Burton Global Open Series) - which placed him second.
"I hadn't had a run that was going smooth the whole day, and my last run was going well so as I was approaching the last jump I was like should I do cab 10 or cab 9 and play it safe? So I played it safe and came through."
So, what are this year's BEO Slopestyle champions spending their $15,000 winnings on?
"That's a lot of money," smiled Lisa. "But I'll just use it to keep snowboarding, traveling and riding. That's it really..."
"I actually have some house payments to make," said down-to-earth Davis. "I bought a house a year ago and times got tough a little bit there, so I'll throw it in the bank account and pay some mortgages. I've got everything else I need: my house, my car, my dog."
Perhaps a few beers too if his appearance at Burton's 10th Birthday bash later at the Rider's Palace was anything to go by. And why not as, clearly stoked, Danny's been killing it this season. And, riding alongside his Frends crew (Kevin Pearce, Mason Aguirre and more) it's less like competing, and more like a good park session with your pals - with a $15K pay packet. Damn.
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Burton European Open Finals: Lisa Wiik & Danny Davis win Slopestyle (text) by Gemma Freeman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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