Today is Thursday March 15th and we are at day 2 of The US Open in Stratton Vermont.  The weather took a turn for the worst and the snow conditions didn’t make riding the slopestyle course very simple.  During the slopestyle mens and womens practice I managed to sneak in for a couple runs and found out exactly what the riders were going through.  The rain in the morning placed a super soft layer underneath the heavy wet snow that began to fall in the early afternoon.  This caused the slope-course to have an uncomfortable fast-slow-fast-slow feel.  The riders felt this as they approached the table tops.  It is very hard to clear jumps when the snow conditions are like this so the US Open qualifiers have postponed until tomorrow Friday the 16th.  Thats when the mens and womens slopestyle qualifiers- semi finals and finals will take place. Here are some highlights from today. Jussi Oksanen was not even scheduled to compete today and was out in the rain destroying the entire course.  He was throwing down in the gnarliest conditions and is for sure Heavy Metal. Anti Autti was riding all day.  During the rain and snow, I would see him shredding on every run. We all got soaked, did poncho slides and got to see the pressure of the event lift off all the riders shoudlers. This little grom named Kirby stood about three feet and stomped a frontside five in the pipe.  She couldn’t have been older than 10 (Mini Shred in a big halfpipe)  

If you can’t make it to Stratton, you can always catch the Slopestyle, Halfpipe and Big Air finals on NBC’s US Open highlights show, airing Sunday March 18^th from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm EST.  There will also be free webcasts of the final events on www.burton.com.  

WEBCAST SCHEDULE:Friday, March 16:           Slopestyle Finals                       2:30 pm – 4:00 pm ESTSaturday, March 17:       Halfpipe Semifinals                     9:00 am – 12:15 pm ESTSaturday, March 17:       Halfpipe and Big Air Finals          11:00 pm – 1:45 am EST 

Slopestyle Course:

Street style down rail on right

25 steps on the staircase

10 to 25 flat down box on the left

1^st Jump 45’ on the big side, 35’ ft on the small side                     

2^nd Jump 50’ on the big side, 45’ ft on the small side

3^rd Jump 55’ on the big side, 45’ ft on the small side

4^th Jump 50’ on the big side, 40’ ft on the small side

Last rail feature

Gateway box on the left 10’ , 10’, 10’ (3 - 10’ ft sections)

30 ft long stock flat bar at 4 ft high on the right

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2007 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Contests and Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.