For lack of a better intro, we’ll start this thing off with Dingo’s quote of the night: “This has been the most amazing snowboarding on a slopestyle course ever, ever, ever. In case you’re two years old, that’s three evers, which means he’s serious. The setup was a line of four kickers ending in the crazy skatepark-influenced rail jam zone of last night’s Steel and Sky Rail Jam. The jumps were obviously the key point of the night, and with a prize money total of $80,000 on the line, they were taken full advantage of.
Jonas Carlson started off the night with a smooth backside 1080, and things only progressed from there—he almost pulled a switch frontside 1440 at the end of the night. David Benedek threw down a clean line of all four nines, and Andreas Wiig stepped everything up with his first run—a backside Rodeo 9, switch frontside 1080, Switch backside 9, frontside 1080 combo—could things really get any more ridiculous? The answer is yes, yes they could. Capita’s Blue Montgomery aptly remarked that snowboarding has reached video game level after watching Jonas’ run of three 9′s, a 10, and a full boardslide around the C-wall, a run that landed him no higher than 6th place—the bar has been raised. Capita’s Dan Brisse then attempted a double-cork 1260, and Sammy Luebke ended what was looking like a solid night with a Backside 9 attempt resulting in a broken arm. Oh yeah, and then Benedek went switch backside 9, to backside 9, to switch frontside 9, to frontside Double-Cork 1260 like it was no big thing—yeah, that happened. With five minutes left, Kevin Pearce was sitting in third and greased three 10′s and a switch backside 9, but Chas Guldemond eeked him off the podium last minute with a dirty final run of the first BS 1260 ever done at The Session followed by a McTwist on the QP. Benedek and Andreas were the obvious top qualifiers throughout the night, but in the end it was Andreas who came out on top.
Well, I’m fairly certain that’s the most rotation-heavy paragraph I’ve ever written, which is fitting, since I was getting dizzy just watching this thing. There were lots of firsts, lots of Bud Light, and lots of Sketchy-D yelling for some girl named Geena outside the VIP tent. Well, I guess I could keep going, but I don’t think anybody really wants that, so let’s just end this. It’s slideshow time.
Slopestyle Results:
1. Andreas Wiig—93.7 points
2. David Benedek—90.7 points
3. Chas Guldemond—84.3 points
Tune in to NBC Saturday, January 20 at 2:00 (EST) for a one-hour special of The Honda Session at Vail.
