http://mpora.com/videos/hzkEj9HCm The Finnish phenomenon Peetu Piiroinen made history over the weekend, becoming the first man to win back to back TTR World Tour Titles after he took first place at the Oakley Arctic Challenge (TAC) in Tryvann Winterpark in Oslo, Norway.
Peetu had gone into the contest knowing that he needed to finish sixth or higher to take the title, and the change to a slopestyle format – rather than the customary quarterpipe session – would surely play into his hands. Solid first and second runs meant that as the unassuming Finn dropped in for his final run he knew the tour title was his. However, that didn’t stop him stepping up his game and throwing down a run worthy of a true champion – his super-clean backside 10 late cork, backside rodeo 7 and a massive straight air over the hip helped him edge out the previous leader, Torstein Horgmo.
Torstein, who had qualified through in first place on the Friday, had apparently been working late the night before to help shape the Viking-themed slopestyle course alongside fellow locals Terje Haakonsen and Mikkel Bang. His knowledge of his home mountain really showed when he dropped a couple of places before Peetu, and threw down what looked like the run of the weekend. Making ridiculously tech rail combos look easy is second nature to Torstein, and his backside 180 to switch 50-50 change up 270 out impressed the hell out of the judges. He followed this up with a cab three nose poke and then went huge over the kickers stomping a switch backside 12, and two sevens, to take the lead from Mikkel Bang.
With Norwegians sitting in first and second place, the large Oslo crowd were obviously pretty stoked – that is until Peetu turned up and blew the local boys out the water. As always, the almost painfully shy Peetu stopped short of actually sounding excited with his achievement, but judging by the smile on his face, I’d say he was pretty stoked. What with that Olympic silver medal, it’s not been a bad year for Mr Piiroinen really!
If you wanna watch the action, you can have a look at the level of riding on display in this edit from the qualifying day, or catch a full replay of the hour-and-a-half long contest on ttrworldtour.com
