Sunday, January 21, 2001 -- Snowshoe, WV
Slopestyle Snowboard Competition
Story and photos by Don Parks
[Details] [Coverage] [Overall Results] [Pic Set 1] [Pic Set 2] [Pic Set 3]
For professional quality photos from all Snowshoe
Mountain events see Reflections of Snowshoe, on the
mountain at the Shaver's Center, or visit them on
the web.
The event was the Slopestyle Snowboard Competition held at Snowshoe Mountain's (SnowshoeMtn.com) Mountaineer Terrain Park in their Silver Creek area. You start with a great mountain and then you throw in some fresh snow, some hard work by park designer Theo Bliagous and Cat driver Mike Thompson to create an awesome terrain park, and then a beautiful sunny day arrives to welcome the crowds. What more could you ask for? Just some of the area's finest snowboarders ready to rip into some giant air!
Judges were scattered across the many features available for the
competitions. They were ready to grade the riders in four areas:
Amplitude, Difficulty, Landing, and Style. Each rider's scores were
totaled for two runs as they had their pick of at least five table
tops (one with two lips), three rails (one rainbow), a spine, a
quarterpipe, and a hip jump on which to make their best impressions.
Putting on one incredible display to win the overall title, and the Men's 19-25 age group, was Doug Mercer (Airwalk - Full Tilt Skate and Snow). Mercer racked up 74 points to set himself apart from the rest of the competition. The next best was the 67 points earned by Mens' 26-Over Class winner Justin Ryan, who would have challenged Mercer had it not been for some missed landings.
Not to be shown up by the old guys, Jared Minghini
(Burton - Backhill - Spy Optics - Rt. 66) was busting up the place
with a 66.5 score as he easily won the 12-Under Men's class. Other
men's winners included Ian Robertson (8-Under), Matt
Lucas (13-15), and TJ Nine (16-18).
After kickin' it up on the slopes, it was time to head inside for what has become the signature of a Snowshoe snowboarding competition, one amazing awards party. First you've got Snowshoe Mountain throwing in a ton of pizza and sodas along with t-shirts and trophies. Then you have Balzout (Balzout.com) and Glass & Powder's host of friends (Santa Cruz, 686, Northwave, Liptec, Airwalk, Option, Version Goggles, Drake, Smith, Da Kine, Technine, M3, and others) laying out a huge buffet of awards and prizes. Plain and simple, if you showed up for this event you came home with an arm-load of great schwag.
Helping make all this possible, a big shout-out goes to Snowshoe's Pete Moran and Bryan Marshall for greasing the wheels and getting the whole show running smooth from start to finish. They'll be at it again for March 17th's Boardercross Brawl and Halfpipe Invasion - "The biggest snowboard event of the season in the biggest and best terrain park in the region." You won't want to miss this one!
Also see the 1999 coverage from the Snowshoe's Halfpipe Invasion and Slopestyle Air Competition