Riding Like Never Before And Fresh Powder To Boot

13 August 2005

Riding Like Never Before And Fresh Powder To Boot

Fresh snow and world-class competitive riding marked the final day of the Burton New Zealand Open at Cardrona Alpine Resort today (Saturday). New Zealand snowboarding rose to a new level with yesterday’s qualifiers joining today’s pre-qualified riders to put on the best show of riding ever witnessed in New Zealand.

The men’s competition was a nail-biting contest with three of the world’s best snowboarders constantly stepping up the difficulty of their runs in a bid to out do each other into first place. At the end of the day Olympic gold medallist and US Open champion Ross Powers took first place in his last run of the day astonishing the crowd with huge airs, back to back spins and general all-round clean run, capping it off with 1080.

Last year’s winner, Crispin Lipscomb from Canada had to make do with second place, despite a very clean run giving him the lead with back to back 900 spins and huge until Ross Powers pulled out his outstanding last run.

Current World Superpipe Champion, Keir Dillon had been piecing together tricks all day and finally strung it together when it counted to take third place.

In the women’s competition, Hannah Teter (USA) was the stand out right from the practice run in the morning. She lead from the start and stepped it up on each run until the last where she pulled off a frontside 900 spin, making her the clear winner.

Showing that age is never an issue, 13-year-old Ellery Hollingsworth (USA) took out second with a display of riding way beyond her years.

Highest place New Zealanders were brother and sister team, Mitch and Kendall Brown who placed 10th and 6th respectively, both riding well against a strong international field.

ENDS

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