The European Open 2008
January 24, 2008 on 9:07 pm | In Snowboarding |
Torah Bright in the pipe…
I have been with the Roxy team who spent a very successful and fun week at the Burton European Open in Laax, Switzerland. The pipe and slopestyle were in the best shape we had ever seen and the riding reflected this. The field in both the ladies and mens event was as strong as it gets with riders battling it out for much coveted TTR points as well as points towards the Burton Open Series. With a lot of prize money up for grabs for both the TTR overall title and the Burton Open Title, as well as the BEO prize purse and a brand new Suzuki for the overall male and female at the BEO there was everything to ride for.
The slopestyle was interesting and challenging with good aspects for kicker and rail riders making sure the best overall rider would come out on top. Team Roxy were very strong in the qualifiers with Lisa Wiik and Margot Rozies riding particularly well. They made it through to join Kjersti Buaas and Torah Bright in the semi finals. The general riding from the girls in the semi finals was great. There were 7s and 5s in abundance and a lot of very technical jib tricks were being thrown down. With the girls really pushing the limits, there were a lot of crashes and a few great riders missed the cut due to crashes. Unfortunately, Torah Bright was one of the crash casualties to miss the cut.
She was in good company as the Dutch ripper and one of the slopestyle favourites, Cheryl Maas also failed to land a clean run. In the end it was Kjersti Buaas and Margot Rozies, who was riding better than ever in her home park, who made it through to the finals. Margot continued to ride out of her skin with super solid and flowing runs on the rails and kickers and ended up in a very respectable 5th place. Kjersti had some issues on the jibs and just could not stick her massif frontside 720 cleanly so ended up in 7th. There was great riding from all the girls though and the end result was Jamie Anderson in first, Jenny Jones in second and Sylvia Mittermuller in 3rd.
The competition in the pipe was equally as fierce from the qualification to the finals. I rode particularly well in the qualification round, winning my heat comfortably. I went on to join Lisa Wiik, Kjersti Buaas and Torah Bright in the semi finals. The semis of the pipe mirrored the semis of the slope with a lot of crashing going on due to the levels the girls were pushing themselves to. Kjersti and I just missed having clean runs, although we both rode very well, which left Torah the sole Roxy defender in the finals. She was out to prove a point after missing the slopestyle finals and rode out of her skin putting down cab 9s and switch backside 7s, by far the most technical pipe riding by any girl in the World ever. In the end if was Kelly Clark who piped her to first place though with some of the largest airs anyone had ever seen in a ladies event, or mens for that matter!!!!!! The final result was Kelly Clark in first, Torah Bright in second and Hannah Teter in third.
Team Roxy are now off to the X Games where they hope to ride hard, have fun and clean up, while I am heading back to Scotland to check out the conditions at home. I have heard they are epic and I really can not wait to get up Cairngorm and see for myself!!
Margot in the slopestyle..
Lesley McKenna
http://www.chunkyknit.com
Professional snowboarder, film maker and ambassador for Visitscotland. All sorts of outdoor sports from skiing to mountain biking and now mixes her time on the Snowboard World Cup Tour with time in Scotland doing these sports.
