Where: Brighton, Utah, USA

In the true tradition of the Nikita Chickita, that is combing girls, shredding and fun in the best possible way, the US leg of the event went down in Brighton, Utah last weekend.

Slightly different from the European events, this one held two contests divided into the categories Amateurs and Pros, to give all Chickitas a chance to show what they got and compete against equals. In the end it turned out a bit different than expected with one girl winning both categories – being an amateur! Make sure you stay on the watch for Miss Jessica Jensen and her super clean back 5s. With only 17 years at the moment she is very sure to impress us even further in the future…

Other riders making an impression were Nikita Team rider and NC USA regular Colleen Quigley, who took 3^rd again in the PROs category, and Paige Rainear getting tech on the rails with front board back one’s and gnarly nollie back tails.

Results

Winner AMs:

1^st Place – Jessica Jensen, Idaho

2^nd Place – Midori Oatari, Japan

3^rd Place – Ranae Palma, Massachusetts

Winner Pros:

1^st Place – Jessica Jensen, Idaho

2^nd Place – Lynn Neill, Utah

3^rd Place – Colleen Quigley, Massachusetts

nikitaclothing.com

Team America: Hannah Teter, Gretchen Bleiler, Kelly Clark, Shaun White, Louie Vito and Scotty Lago. Greg Bretz and Elena Hight not pictured.

After some madness in their qualifying Grand Prix series of contests, the guys and gals who’ll be dropping into the Vancouver u-tube for the USA have been announced.

The Grand Prixs were nuts. Shaun White landed the best pipe run ever, only to have Danny Davis land the best pipe run ever at the next stop. Both were looking odds on to take two of the four men’s spots. Then Danny got injured and dropped out the running, Scotty Lago stayed consistent throughout the series with dancing boy Louie Vito’s solid double corks seeing him place well, and at the last relative unknown Greg Bretz edged out Luke Mitrani and former bronze medallist JJ Thomas to book his spot in Canada.

Have a look at Greg in this video from Whitelines and see some of the smoothness and tech that saw him bag his spot. Oh, and the guy landing the best pipe run ever to win the gig? That’ll be Shaun White…

More Snowboarding >>

Things were a little less dramatic for the women, where the squad of Hannah Teter, Kelly Clark, Gretchen Bleiler and Elena Hight is exactly the same as the one that rocked up to Torino four years ago. Like White, Clark blitzed the series winning four of the five stops and must be the bookies favourite to take the gold. But then there’s rumours Torah Bright has a double in her bag…

Whatever you think of Olympics, double corks, spin-to-win and competitive snowboarding in general, there’s no denying that this little contest in February will be interesting to say the least.