For this Friday’s Photoblast, we’re bringing you some of Editor in Chief Danny Burrows’ bangers from the 11th Burton European Open that wrapped up in Laax last weekend.

Yes, there were double corks, late corks, wine corks and whirlybirds galore. There was also plenty of style on show, so click your way through this eye candy below and get ready for the weekend.

More video highlights from the 11th Burton European Open slopestyle and halfpipe contests.

A tight cut from the TTR of some of the killer shredboarding that went down in Laax last week, including Mikkel Bang‘s übersteezy switch backside 12, Peetu Piiroinen‘s stomptastic slopestyle run, and a bunch of double corking in the pipe.

slopestyle finals

Now that the 2010 BEO is done and dusted, we got the winning runs in slopestyle and pipe for you to get hyped on.

After a win at the Roxy Chicken Jam, rookie Finnish rider Enni Rukajärvi continued to show why so many people see a bright future for her with a stellar run to clinch the women’s slopestyle. The girl is just a super stylish stomp machine. In the men’s last year’s TTR winner Peetu Piiroinen left it to the last run to usurp an on-fire Mikkel Bang and did so with some clean jibs and 10-9-10 on the kickers.

The pipe saw Poland’s Paulina Ligocka take the women’s crown with a front 9, some straight airs and a front 7, while Peetu once more left it to his last run to stomp his monster double cork 10 and continue down the pipe like he was on crazy pills to beat off fellow Finn Ilkka-Eemeli Laari.

For more on the BEO, including reports, photos and video interviews with the winners, check the Onboard Events section.

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The über Finn takes his second 6 Star TTR win in two days while the Pole tops the women’s podium.

Under perfect blue skies the 2010 Burton European Open came to a close today with the hotly contested halfpipe finals. The usually-immaculate u-jump on the Crap Sogn Gion had come in for a bit of criticism from the riders after the semi finals, with the sluff and walls proving hard to get to grips with, however the shaping crew had put in a sterling shift for the finals and a thumbs up from Peetu Piiroinen had us amped for the final showdown.

Women's podium.

There was bad news in training, though. Firstly young Norwegian Tore Holvik, who’d had us pumped in the semis, hoofed a double cork a good 4-5 metres into the stratosphere but came out too far and landed flat breaking his arm. Then Markus Keller, Swiss stylemaster and contender for Onboard’s favourite rider ever award, caught an edge, spanked his head and knocked himself out. Hopefully both guys are Ok and heal up soon.

The women got things started with a mix of TTR frontrunners like Sarka Pancochova and Lisa Wiik facing off with some fresh faces from Poland, Slovenia and Japan. As with the men, the absence of the American contingent was felt, but the girls stepped it up on their own terms and there were some progressive runs thrown down with 7s as commonplace as they were rare a mere few years ago. Despite some strong riding from Cilke Sadar, the impressive Sarka Pancochova and an under-scored Lisa Wiik, Polish rider Paulina Ligocka took her first ever TTR win with a run that consisted of a front 9, backside air, frontside air, backside tail, front 7 and cab 3. Second went to the local lady Ursina Haller with third being bagged by the 36-year-old Japanese Akika Miwa. Who says snowboarders are over the hill at 25?

Ski clowns.

The start of the men’s final was a bit of a weird one to be honest. Though we’d been anticipating off the hook whirlybirding the majority of the riders fell or sketched their first runs – it seemed that the second hit was a little over vert causing people to come way out and land flat. With some adjustments to their runs they managed to deal with it and saw some humdingers from the likes of Iouri Podladtchikov (first hit double cork and mixing up with 9s and 10s), Janne Korpi (back to back 9s, back to back 10s and a always-welcome Heave-Ho). Mad props must also go to Gian Simmen and Xaver Hoffman who showed that the old dogs have still got it with some of the highest airs of the day and they even kept up with the kids on a couple of spins.

Patrick Burgener.

After the first two runs it looked like the strongest riding was being put down by man-child Ståle Sendbech, Ilkka-Eemeli Laari (who’d fought through the qualifiers with some of the most progressive runs including front 12s and double corks stomped like clockwork) and Ipod, with Ilkka sat comfortably in first with one run to go. But Peetu Piiroinen was just about to blow our minds. As he’d just sneaked into the finals, qualifying in 16th, he had to drop first and had been coming a cropper on his huge second hit double cork 12s and new he needed to get it down if he was to be in with a chance. If Peetu was feeling the pressure he took his last shot it wasn’t showing. Rather than change his approach to deal with the second hit he persevered and put it down when is mattered – front 7, monster double cork 10, front 9, backside air and and alley-oop 5 tailgrab. The military would call it a shock and awe strike, but for snowboarders, buck wild should do it.

Peetu Piiroinen.

So, two 6 star TTR wins in two days sees Peetu leave Laax as stoked as we’ve ever seen the kid, while Paulina can start to build on her first podium result and take it on into the rest of the winter. Though the yanks pulled a sickie, the BEO was another example of next level shredding and when we come to that little contest near Vancouver in a month, minds will be reeling as to where pipe riding has hoisted itself to.

Where: Laax, Switzerland

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All Photos: Danny Burrows

It was the day of the Finns today on the seventh day of the Burton European Open in Laax. Finnish riders Enni Rukajärvi and Peetu Piiroinen brought home victory in the slopestyle finals. Enni has won all three contests she competed in this season and Peetu has cemented his TTR ranking lead with his first 6-star TTR victory.

The day started with the women’s slopestyle semifinals. Once again, bluebird conditions over the entire day enabled the riders to crank up the amplitude and show very technical tricks. Very early into the contest it became clearthat Enni was a force to be reckoned with today: She showed the two best runs in the semifinals and lead the group of eight that made up the finals.

Girls Prizegiving

The format of the finals had the women and the men take turns in delivering their runs. The women began and showed some amazing riding. Again it was Enni who dominated the contest. Her best run started off with some great jib moves in the upper section of the course: a 50-50 Boardslide to Fakie, Cab 360 Slide, Cab 270 Boardslide, 50-50 on the Downbox, a huge Stalefish over the quarter, a Frontside 360 Indy, Backside mute 540 and a stylish Cab 720. The magnitude of the tricks as well as their style could not be matched by any other girl. Throughout the afternoon only local rider Sina Candrian and Czech competitor Sarka Pancochova came close. But even though the spectators gave all their support Sina bailed on the decisive last run and thus cleared the way for Enni’s third victory of the season (after the Roxy Chicken Jam earlier this month and the Horsefeathers Pleasure Jam in November). To be fair, Enni was arguably unbeatable today as each of her five runs would have been enough to win the competiton.

Enni going big.

In the men’s finals, things were way closer: Mikkel Bang launched into an insane first run that consisted of a Front 7, a Cab 7 and a Switch Backside 12 over the kickers. With a score of 92.00 he kept the lead all through the contest, even though a lot of other Scandinavian riders tried hard: Germund Braaten for example showed an amazing Cab 9 followed by a back-to-back Frontside/Backside 10 combo in his second run, which landed him in the third place overall. Peetu Piiroinen seemed to be struggling at first and was behind Mikkel up until his last run. However, being the expectional rider he is he ripped up some mad shit in his third run. He destroyed the upper part of the course with a 270 Boardslide 270 Out, Backside 360 Mute Polejam, Frontside Disaster, Switch Front Board, and a Cab 720 Inverted. This was followed by a huge Backside 1080 Tail, a Frontside 900 and a Cab 1080 over the kicker line. And since he performed all of this with his signature precision and amplitude it was enough to win the finals with a score of 93.00 by one point in front of Mikkel. Special mention must go to Stefan Maurer who rode the contest on a Fish yet still got his jib on up to and then stomped a back 7, double backflip and front 10 on the kickers. That was the nuts.

Mikkel Bang

Enni and Peetu both take home a big smile on their faces as well as a cheque over 15,000 dollars and 1,000 TTR World Ranking points each.

Tomorrow will see the halfpipe finals for both men and women. Make sure to check the results on yours truely onboardsnowboarding.com!

Peetu Piiroinen

Results Men’s Slopestyle Finals

Results Women’s Slopestyle Finals

1 Rukajärvi Enni 93.17
2 Candrian Sina 78.50
3 Pancochova Sarka 74.50
4 Wiik Lisa 63.83
5 Gottlieb Shelly 62.67
6 van Gils Charlotte 45.50
7 Ramholt Tina 41.00
8 Karlinski Jordie 33.33

Miikka Hast. Photos: Marcel Lämmerhirt.

Though it’s dumping across most of Europe, in Laax the weather gods smiled on the BEO as Slovenian Luka Jeromel and US rider Ty Walker took the top spots in the Men’s and Women’s Slopestyle Qualifications.

Yesterday, the fourth day the BEO circus has been posted up in Laax, saw the 40 men that made it through the Pre-Qualifications and 50 women have two runs to show what they were made of.

With 18 places for the men and 13 for the women to advance t the semi final, where they’d meet the seeded riders and the competition turns the shredometer up to 11, the competition was hot.

Ville Paumola.

The men kicked things off early doors on the well-thought out slopestyle course. From the outset, Slovenian Luka Jeromel seemed to be riding a notch above his fellow competitors. Luka’s run went down like this: a frontside boardslide on the box, a backflip off the pole jam, a backside disaster on the jib tube, frontside boardslide on the box, frontside 540 tailgrab on the quarterpipe feature and finished his run with a frontside 720 tail, a backside 900 mute and a cab 720 mute on the kicker-line.

Women's qualifiers.

Doing it for the girls was US rider Ty Walker, who’d already bagged the BEO junior slopestyle at the weekend. Her juuior win the previous year earned her a wildcard to ride with the big girls, and she duly dumped them on their asses – the day’s youngest competitor posted the highest score of the day (79.33) ahead of last weekend’s Roxy Chicken Jam winner Enni Rukajärvi.

Today’s BEO agenda is the women’s halfpipe qualifications and the men’s slopestyle semi-finals, so check back later/tomorrow for the skinny on what went down.

Slopestyle Qualification Men Results

1. Jeromel Luka SLO FORUM 81.33

2. Ciancaleoni Giorgio ITA BURTON 73.00

3. Lipsanen Janne FIN RIPCURL 72.83

4. Paumola Ville FIN QUIKSILVER 72.67

5. Ryan Sean USA FORUM 71.00

6. Tiller Sondre NOR DC SHOE CO USA 70.50

7. Hast Miikka FIN PROTEST 70.17

8. Morgan Ethan GER FORUM 69.67

9. Uotila Ville FIN ATOMIC 69.33

10. Nordgaard Trym NOR QUIKSILVER 69.17

11. Arvidsson Nils SWE RIPCURL 69.00

12. Sørensen Paal NOR QUIKSILVER 68.83

13. Braaten Gjermund NOR OAKLEY 68.50

14. Nicholls Jamie GBR QUIKSILVER 67.00

15. Tonteri Roope FIN BURTON 66.00

16. McMorris Mark CAN ONEILL 62.33

17. Backstrom Kevin SWE BURTON 62.00

18. Neraker Simmen NOR 32 SNOWBOARD 61.83

Slopestyle Qualfication Women Results

1.  Walker Ty USA ROXY 79.33

2.  Rukajärvi Enni FIN ROXY 78.00

3.  Somaini Carla SUI NEVER SUMMER 70.67

4.  Fuller Aimee GBR ROXY 67.50

5.  van Gils Charlotte NED K2 63.17

6.  Karlinski Jordie USA NIKITA 61.17

7.  Nadig Helen SUI ZIMTSTERN 60.67

8. Van Der Pouw Britte NED ROXY 59.00

9. Alekhina Elena RUS Roxy 58.83

10.  Sadlowski Diana POL CONTRACT 56.67

11.  Zabranska Lucie CZE ROXY 56.33

12. Pribosic Urska SLO ELAN 55.67

13. Ramholt Tina SUI HORSEFEATHER 54.83