Yesterday’s men’s slopestyle semi-finals set the bar high for this year’s Burton European Open, and the action continued apace today, with the women’s slopestyle semis and the men’s halfpipe semis. With the invited riders entering at this stage in the contest, things always heat up, and today was no exception. Despite the weather again refusing to play ball, and pushing everything back by a few hours, there was still some seriously balls out shredding on display. Hit more to read the full roundup of the action.
Like yesterday, the men’s halfpipe semi-finals saw riders who’d come through the qualifiers claim some serious scalps, with the likes of Fredrik Austbo, Luke Mitrani and last week’s O’Neill Evolution champion Christian Haller all failing to make the finals. Meanwhile, Jan Scherrer, who came through pre-qualis, was sitting comfortable in the number ten spot, meaning he’d make it through. Kazu Kokubo, here for his first ever BEO pipe comp, immpressed with two sweet stylish runs, but success story of the day though had to be France’s Arthur Longo, who after stacking on his first run came through with a super-clean second one to claim the top spot. In classic French style Arthur looked pretty non-plussed by beating the likes of Peetu and I-Pod. Perhaps eet was eez smoking a cheeky cigarette in between ze runs zat made ze difference? Unfortunately our boy Ben Kilner, who’d killed it all through pre-qualis, took a bad (and ridiculously unlucky) slam in practise, injuring his shoulder and meaning he didn’t start.
By the time the women’s slopestyle semis started, the weather was wreaking havoc, creating conditions that the commentators described as ‘challenging’. Aimee Fuller, who as an invited rider was looking pretty good, finished an impressive tenth, after falling on the final kicker after a near flawless second run. She was however, disappointed not to make the six-woman final.
Jamie Anderson dominated, showing the benefit of years of experience competing by posting a score of 83.50 on her first run. In fact, the top six featured yanks pretty heavily, with youngsters Ty Walker and Jordie Karlinski also making the final. The other three to make it through were Silje Norendaal, a relatively unknown but impressively talented Slovenian lass named Urska Pribosic and Swiss miss Sina Candrian, lapping up the love of her home crowd. With sun promised for tomorrow (yes, they can control the weather here… c’mon, it’s Burton!) the halfpipe finals look set to go off.
Burton European Open
Mens Halfpipe Semis -Results
1 Arthur Longo
2 Peetu Piiroinen
3 Markus Malin
4 Kazu Kokubo
5 Benji Farrow
6 Iuori Podlatchikov
7 Scotty James
8 Iikka-Eemeli Laari
9 Markus Keller
10 Jan Scherrer
Burton European Open
Women’s Slopestyle Semis – Results
1 Jamie Anderson
2 Urska Pribosic
3 Silje Norendaal
4 Sina Candrian
5 Jordie Karlinski
6 Ty Walker
10 Aimee Fuller
