Seppe Smits was the first to nab a TTR title, his second place at the Billabong Air&Style enough to take an unassailable lead in the Big Air tour stakes. As the 6-Star pipe and slopestyle contests rolled on a little longer than the single jump events, we had to wait a while longer for the rest to be determined but with the US Open now a wrap the points have been tallied and the winners announced.

SEPPE – CROWNED AT AIR&STYLE

The women’s slopestyle, unsurprisingly, went to Jamie Anderson who’s domination of the discipline is pretty much unprecedented. Sure, Spencer O’Brien knocked her off her perch at the World Snowboarding Championships but that was the exception rather than the rule. She came first at ever major slope event this season bar that and as well as being as tech as it gets the girl’s style is just something else. Seriously, there’s a lot of dudes who’d kill to be able to ride so smooth.

ANDERSON – BEO 1ST

Another girl who’s on her own level is Kelly Clark and, despite having her incredible winning streak ended at the US Open by Elena Hight, her second place coupled with a list of firsts longer than your arm were enough to take the TTR pipe title.

CLARK – BEO 1ST

In men’s slopestyle the inaugural crown went to Canadian cowboy Seb Toutant whose hyper hucking in Stratton netted enough points to just edge out Chas Guldemond, while the halfpipe title was bound for Switzerland as despite not having the best of times at the US Open, Iouri Podladtchikov owned the recent BEO and showed consistency throughout the year that guaranteed another bit of bling will sit in the cabinet nicely next to his WSC pipe trophy.

TOUTANT – US OPEN 1ST

IPOD – WSC PIPE 1ST

The overall title went to Ståle Sandbech for the guys and Cilka Sadar for the girls, and rewarded them both for ripping as hard in the pipe as they do on the jumps. This, for us, would be the true crown – the glory going to riders who’ve held it down the hardest, no matter the terrain, throughout the whole tour – but the fact is that as the level of riding has skyrocketed, so has the focus of the riders on specific areas of snowboarding. Adapt or die, we guess.

SANDBECH – AIR&STYLE 3RD

The 2012/2013 season which officially begins with the Quiksilver Spring Battle taking place March 28th to 30th, 2012.

L to R - Jamie Anderson, Emil Ulsletten, Cilka Sadar and Christian Haller.

Check the runs of the guys and girls who are now 5k richer thanks to their creativity and Mini’s desire to see innovation rewarded at the Open series of shred contests.

The MINI Creative Use of Space Award at the Burton European Open 2012: Jamie Anderson, Emil Ulsletten, Cilka Sadar and Christian Haller show the most creative tricks and take home US$ 5,000!

The third round of the MINI Creative Use of Space Award (CUoS) went down last weekend at the Burton European Open (BEO) in Laax, Switzerland. In spring-like conditions, the world’s best snowboarders unwrapped their skills in the event’s two major competitions: slopestyle and halfpipe. The female and male riders that demonstrated the most creative tricks during the finals took home US$ 5,000 and the MINI CUoS Slopestyle and Halfpipe Awards.

SLOPESTYLE WINNERS

With a smooth backside lipslide on the corner wall combination followed by a massive front side 360 melon over the roof gap, Jamie Anderson (USA) proved her creativity and bagged the MINI CUoS Slopestyle Award in the women’s category. On the men’s side, the judges awarded Emil Ulsletten (NOR) for his rad trick combo on the MINI CUoS Slopestyle Feature: alley-oop 360 over the corner wall followed by a cab to 50/50 to 360 out on the rail set. In the halfpipe finals, the MINI CUoS Awards went to Cilka Sadar (SLO) for a stylish backside alley-oop japan and Christian “Hitsch” Haller (SUI) who stomped an incredible alley-oop seatbelt.

The awarded riders not only took home the prize money, but also collected 25 points towards the final ranking of the Burton Global Open Series (BGOS) and the MINI Countryman which will be given to the male and female with the most points at the 30th Annual US Open in Stratton, Vermont on March 10, 2012.

HALFPIPE WINNERS

The MINI CUoS Slopestyle Feature at the 2012 Burton European Open was created by lead builder Roger Heid and his shape crew. Inspired by urban snowboarding, Heid designed a unique feature that aimed to bring the streets to the mountain – including a corner wall combination, a rail set and a MINI. Thanks to its diversity, the MINI Feature offered the riders great freedom in choosing their line resulting in innovative and unconventional tricks. In addition to the riders, the shape crews also compete for an award: The MINI Feature that is deemed to be the most creative of the four BGOS stops will win US$ 5,000 and the MINI CUoS Slopestyle Feature Award.

On Saturday, 12 February 2011, a piece of snowboard history went into the books as the 20th anniversary of the NESCAFÉ CHAMPS Leysin, the oldest snowboard event in Europe, once again featured a nail biting final. Under sunny skies that made for warm spring-like conditions, the Swiss crowds gathered to relax and watch the high level of riding as both men and women took to the progressive slopestyle course. Slovenian shredder, Cilka Sadar, took a hefty lead early on and won the women’s title, which improved her ranking points to defend her World No. 2 position, while Swiss young gun, Lucien Koch, took home the men’s title. Both winners took home a share of the $ 50 000 USD prize purse and 850 Swatch TTR World Ranking points.

Risto Mattila in the pipe. Photo: Pierre Cailloux

Rookie Lucien Koch takes First in the Men’s Slopestyle
Even though the snow was melting at the speed of light all around the Swiss mountains, the slopestyle course at the NESCAFÉ CHAMPS Leysin was in impeccable shape featuring a mix of kickers, a halfpipe and a wallride. The men’s winner, Lucien Koch, a Swiss rider of only 15-years, impressed the crowds and judges with a stylish frontside 720 on the top kicker, he then smoothly dropped into the pipe and stomped a backside 900 and a frontside 900 then tossed in a huge backside 900 on the bottom kicker that flowed into a tail blunt on the wallride. Lucien, who made his way through the open qualifications, was stoked on his victory and had this to say, “Today was great for me, I won this competition and I can’t believe it! It was perfect for me, because I always ride kicker and pipe, and here you have kicker and pipe in one run”. Earlier in the season, he took third place at the 4Star Nissan Stomp-it and this was his first major Swatch TTR event title, which moved him into the TTR Top 50. In second place was experienced slopestyle rider, Risto Mattila (FIN), and in third Niklas Mattson (SWE).

Cilka Sadar. Photo: Marion Landon

Cilka Sadar Sits Comfortably in World No. 2
On the women’s side, the riding was truly impressive and current Swatch TTR World No. 2 Cilka Sadar (SLO) took the lead with her first run. On her victory lap, Cilka managed to improve on her first run with a solid performance landing a backside 360, then stomping back to back 540’s in the halfpipe and topping it off with a sweet frontside 540 on the last jump. Cilka is motivated to push through to secure a place on the final TTR Top 3 saying, “ Right now I’m World No. 2 on the TTR tour, it feels great, but I know I can’t really win because of Jamie and Kelly. But, I’m going to try my best to get second or third in the end of the season.” In second place was halfpipe specialist and another Swiss favourite, Ursina Haller, who with this result moved into World No. 8. In third Isabel Derungs, an up-and coming Swiss rider, who last weekend nailed the 4Star Stimorol Engadinsnow title, now sits in World No. 20.

Men's prizegiving. Photo: Pierre Cailloux

TTR Tour Moving on to The Oakley Arctic Challenge
The heat is on in the Swatch TTR Tour Champion title race and both men and women will be heading up to The Oakley Arctic Challenge in Oslo, Norway for a 6Star slopestyle competition running on 14th-19th February 2011. Check for the live webcast times on freecaster.com and ttrworldtour.com. The end of February will also see the men compete at the 5Star Burn River Jump in Italy on the 22nd to the 25th of Febraury 2011, as well as the 4Star Sony Ericsson Snowboard Fest on the 18th and 19th of February 2011. To keep up to date on the exciting moments before the TTR Tour Champions are crowned at the 6Star Burton US head to ttrworldtour.com.

Women's prizegiving. Photo: Pierre Cailloux

Of course this Iouri Podlatchikov, not Louri....

Writing a news piece with the whole of Switzerland partying in front of you is a bit of a challenge, but of course they have more than reason to go crazy today – the TTR 6star O’Neill Evolution pipe contest finished with an all Swiss podium, consisting of Christian “Hitsch” Haller, Iouri “I-Pod” Podlatchikov and new up and coming rookie Jan Scherrer.

Already in his first run, new talent Jan Scherrer impressed with a huge BS 9 at the very first hit and he continued riding like that. Aged sweet 16, he already got cripplers, cab 7s and 9s on lock as if he was born doing them and bagged himself a well deserved 3rd spot at this TTR 6Star event.

But also I-Pod knew how to impress today, with super fast spinning and precise riding, that kept him in top spot until the very last minutes. Especially his second run including a Crippler, Double McTwist and FS 10 got judges and spectators hyped likewise. It wasn’t meant for him today though. As after snapping his board desastering on the coping in his second run, fellow Swissman Hitsch Haller busted out BS 5, FS 10, Cab 10, FS 9 run 5 minutes before the end, overtaking I-Pod by 0.25 points, making the all Swiss podium come true and moving him up to 3rd place in the overall TTR ranking. Instead of hard feelings you only got super stoked smiles, enthusiastic hugs and combined signing of Swiss flags from the spectators.

Surprisingly the normally so super dominant Finnish shred machines couldn’t stomp the way we’re used to and so Peetu Piiroinen ended up in 4th place after he had won the semi finals this morning.

The Women’s Pipe final that went down just before didn’t have as many surprises with USA’s Kelly Clark clearly dominating the field, flying higher than anyone else and scoring full on 80 points in all of her three runs (which moved her up to TTR rank 3 as well). We’re not sure if that also had something to do with the fan club that was screaming like hell when ever she dropped but she more than surely deserved this win for her run including a BS 5, FS 7 and cab 7. She was followed by Slovenian up and coming talent Cilka Sadar and Norwegian style queen Kjersti Buaas, who wasn’t entirely happy with her runs though (“I was running out of pipe! I wanted to do some more tricks…”).

We will start mingling with the party folks now and hopefully be back tomorrow with all highlights, tricks and scores from the big slopestyle finals tomorrow – and maybe even some party gossip…

After a terrific kick-off day loaded with action on the Dachstein glacier, the audience witnessed a fulminant spectacle on a dreamlike and sunny day. In the end, however, only one could win the contest: Splendid winner of the men’s judging was Elias Elhardt (GER) and Enni Rukajaervi (FIN) could come out on top of the ladies. But there’s also a victory to celebrate from the Austrian perspective, as Max Weickl was able to defend his brilliant third place from the qualification in the SuperFinals!

In the morning of the finals, you could already feel the tension in the air on the Dachstein Glacier. The riders who qualified on Friday competed with the invited pros at a perfectly shaped Atomic Superpark.

Sad to say that the Austrian favourite Stefan Gimpl had to cancel his run shorthanded due to a bad sore throat. So the Austrian fans feared for a local placement. But Max Weickl showed the audience how to shred and made a great 3rd place with a terrific run. He commented in his own words:
“I’m extremely happy with my placement. At first I even had to fight for the starting-place and now I’m the third! Maybe my strategy of taking it easy and not trying too complicated stuff paid in the end!”

After a rather unfortunate run in the semi-finale, the German Elias Elhardt stood on top of the victory podium. Elias could not only impress in the main-category but also in the Best-Trick-Contest with a Backside 1080 Doublecork. This trick won him a trip to the surfers paradise Balicamp! Certainly he was really stoked about the results:
“This was my first TTR World Tour Contest and I would never had counted with taking the first place! Of course, I’m the more happy about it and literally in heaven now!“

The second place at the men’s judgement was taken by Torgeir Bergrem (NOR).

The ladies-contest was ruled by Enni Rukajaervi (FIN) who really showed courage and finally convinced the judges with a strong run. Cab 540, backside 360 and frontside 360. She commented:
“The contest was awesome and the Set-up was just perfect. My style could have been better in my opinion, otherwise I’m satisfied with my performance and the result!”

The second and third places were taken by Cheryl Maas (NED) and Cilka Sadar (SLO).

The international significance of the Horsefeathers Pleasure Jam was underlined by the Czech Sarka Pancochova who was taking the lead of the TTR World-Ranking with a great 4th place on the Dachstein glacier.

All participants came together at the official riders party on Friday night at the Hohenhaus Tenne. The party was going on the whole night until Saturday morning. However the real party kickoff was on Saturday. From 16.00 o’clock there was the “Rock the Shop” Event powered by Electric at the Blue Tomato Shop Schladming. Everybody who stopped by got free glühwein and snacks and some riders dropped in directly from the mountaintop.

In the evening the legendary Pickings Fam Party took place at the Hofbauer Stollen. There were a lot of people celebrating and concluding a splendid and successful event! Hopefully you were in!

More information and the official video can be found on the Pleasure Jam Website.