Bobby Brown. p: Dan BrownWords and photos by Dan Brown
The Men and Women’s Slopestyle Finals have just finished here at Killington, Vermont, concluding the freeski events of the second stop of the Winter Dew Tour. Mother Nature surely graced us with beautiful conditions today, perhaps as a mea culpa for the previous three days of unwelcome wind, clouds and troublesome snow. Paired with the great skills of the Killington Terrain Park and Snow Park Technologies who’ve meticulously maintained the course, it certainly was a great event to watch. Without further aideu, here’s what went down.
The ladies were the first to rock the course, taking their best of two runs in order to secure the coveted three spots on the podium. The path from the qualifiers, to semis, to finals, whittled the competitors to the talented six gals that performed in front the gathering crowd this morning. Snagging the third spot on the podium was Emilia Wint. Wint’s run would include a huge cork 7 mute, a flat 3 japan and 540 mute grab. Devin Logan would continue her occupation of the second spot of the finals’ podium in the past 24 hours.
“Today was great coming off of last night with a second, I was just excited to make it into slope finals. Getting another second puts the topping on the ice cream,” Logan would say with a laugh.
Logan stormed the course, with highlights being a huge disaster on the 2nd box setup and airs consisting of switch 540, cork 720 into a flat 540. Kaya Turski would round out the top of the women’s finals, taking first in field of competitors that will certainly be nipping at her heels coming into next week’s XGames. Her run included a frontside switch up into a switch lip into a 180 on, cab 3 out of the cannon box, a switch 540 on the first hit, 540 on the second and finished with a large 720 on the third and final jump.
Dane Tudor. p: Dan BrownWasting no time for the course to cool, and not wanting to delay the live television broadcast on NBC, the Men’s Slopestyle Finals followed suit. Today’s event was the culmination of some pretty unfortunate weather delays that would reschedule the semifinals to the following day, where Bobby Brown, Dane Tudor and Russ Henshaw would take the top spots heading into today’s finals. But as mentioned, the weather was perfect, allowing the competitors to focus on their runs, rather than wind.
Today’s top spots would go to Tom Wallisch, Bobby Brown and Nick Goepper. “It feels good to be on the podium twice,” said Goepper, referring to his victory last year here at the Killington stop. “It’d feel better to be on top but third place is awesome, I love it. It was a perfect day out today, it was sunny, we had a big crowd. The wind wasn’t a factor like it has been in days past.”
Phil Casabon. p: Dan BrownGoepper’s run included a switch 270 on, back 2 out, a 360 switch up, 270 out and a front 4 through the rail features. He’d finish the course with a right dub cork 10 mute, left dub cork 12 mute, and a switch right dub cork 10 japan. Brown, who took 2nd would echo Goepper’s thoughts on the course, “Conditions couldn’t have been better, the course was running really smooth.”
Taking advantage of the changing conditions, Brown switched up his run from yesterday’s finals to include a 270 on, 360 switch up, 270 out, rodeo 4 on the up rail into a unnatural dub 10, right dub 10 and finished with a switch dub 1260. The top honors would go to Tom Wallisch who would continue his domination of the first position from last month’s win at Breckinridge to include today’s victory here at the Killington stop. “It feels amazing, I don’t how to really describe it. It was really scary being up there. It’s weird going last when everyone’s already down at the bottom. To be able to lay down a run and just kind of land…I was happy.” said Wallisch, referring to the difficult he had during his first run. His second run would secure his spot at the top (and a new Dew Tour record with a score of 95.25). It included a switch lip 270, a right frontside switch up, blind 450 out and a switch lip slide, front 450 out of the cannon. His jumps would include a dub cork 1260 mute, switch left dub 1080 japan and a switch right dub cork 1080 japan.
Men’s Final ResultsWomen’s Final Results1_ Tom Wallisch – 95.25
2_ Bobby Brown – 93.00
3_ Nick Goepper – 91.25
4_ Sammy Carlson – 90.25
5_ Henrik Harlaut – 88.75
6_ Andreas Håtveit – 87.25
7_ Russ Henshaw – 85.50
8_ Jf Houle – 84.00
9_ Alex Beaulieu-Marchand – 83.50
10_ Chris Logan – 80.75
11_ Alexis Godbout – 80.50
12_ Dane Tudor – 72.00
13_ Alex Bellemare – 68.50
14_ Philip Casabon – 60.251_ Kaya Turski - 92.25
2_ Devin Logan – 90.50
3_ Emilia Wint - 85.00
4_ Eveline Bhend - 80.00
5_ Emma Dahlström - 41.25
6_ Dara Howell - 36.50
Torin Yater-Wallace. p: Dan Brown
Women’s podium (l-r): Devin Logan, Maddie Bowman, Brita Sigourney. p: Dan Brown
Pep Fujas getting his powder turn on at Rusutsu Resort. P: Nate Abbott
