It was down to the wire at the 2012 Volcom Pipeline Pro with Pipeline veteran Jamie O’Brien in the lead for most of the final over Kai Barger, Nate Yeomans, and John Florence. With O’Brien in the lead, Florence had already conceded defeat, when a wave bumped up on the horizon. Florence paddled for it, slipped in, got shacked and added a 9.33 to his 10 for a winning 19.93.
“I wrote myself off half way through,” said Florence. “Kai and Jamie both had nines and eights. Jamie had two nines. I can’t believe it. Here at Pipe anything can happen. I surfed my first heat, then had my hand (injury) and tweaked my neck really bad and that was killing me. So I was seriously considering not continuing on. I got some work done on my neck, taped my hand up and it all worked out.”
JOB was equally bummed after coming so close.
“It hurts,” said Jamie, holding onto the runner-up $10,000 check. “You think you’re going to get first and you don’t. It’s OK. I got some really good scores and I put on a great performance, I felt. To me that means everything. I had a great time. I finally got in a good rhythm my last couple of heats. I enjoyed myself and it was a good day.”
Tyler De Martini, the 18-year-old Berkeley, California skateboarder who collided with a car on Monday night (January 30, 2012) died on Wednesday, February 1, 2012 from his injuries according to a story on Berkeleyside.com.
[De Martini]who lived in Berkeley but attended El Cerrito High School, was hit by a 54-year old man driving a Prius around 7:05 pm on Jan. 30. The driver was heading eastbound on Marin negotiating a left hand/northbound turn onto Tulare when the two collided, according to Berkeley police. There was no alcohol involved in the collision and the driver was not charged.
Sadly, “Berkeley police have determined that De Martini was in the wrong in the collision.” Our thoughts are with De Martini’s family and friends.
A high-end Swiss watch company might be the last thing you’d think to find in the middle of the C3 Worldwide brand stable, but this past December the company became the North American partner of Home.
“I spent my first ten years working for Swatch,” reminds C3 president and CEO Bob Gundram. “I retained a lot of those contacts through my career. When I was introduced to Swiss brothers Jak and Eddie Doose last year and saw their ideas for Home, I knew we could help them out in North America.”
The company aims to differentiate itself with its Swiss heritage and high–end materials like Swiss quartz, stainless steel, and even anodized aluminum. With price points starting at $300 and topping out around $700 they aren’t exactly for the faint of heart, but the oversized styling makes them a great statement piece. Supported by team riders Travis Rice, Gigi Rüf, and Mark Sollors, Home is gaining traction fast.
Organizers of the Volcom Pipeline Pro didn’t let 12 foot waves get in the way of competition on Day 3 of the event on January 31, 2012.
Defending Volcom Pipe Pro champion, John Florence (Hawaii), scraped through today in a heat that could have been a final. Up against former Pipe champion Bruce Irons, Australian Anthony Walsh, and North Shore local Sean Moody, Florence had his work cut out. Florence made a last minute barrel to steal second place away from Walsh and advance. . . “I was pretty nervous, I almost wasn’t going to do my heat,” said Florence. “I have a really bad kink in my neck, and my hand hurt… I kind of sat there the whole heat and luckily got a wave in the end. Anthony Walsh is so gnarly. That was definitely a scary heat to have… Moody and Bruce too… There are a lot of wash-through sets. It’s fun but there’s these crazy double ups that come in.”
Round of 32 heats could begin today. Follow the jump for full details. [click to continue…]
The Happy Hour is a new universal twin/all mountain snowboard designed by K2 in collaboration with fellow Northwest brand Airblaster.
The board sports a triangular nose and tail and is a new take on the blank board with a solid matte color design on the entire board. It is available in five colors with sizes ranging between 151 and 161 cm.
Tylur Dewolf, a 17-year-old snowboarder from Sandy, Oregon died Friday night (January 27, 2012) after she hit a tree while riding at Mt. Hood Ski Bowl, according to as story on NWCN.com.
Rescuers found Dewolf’s body near Dog Leg Run. It appeared that she had lost control while snowboarding and crashed into a tree just off of the groomed run. She suffered severe trauma to her head and chest. Investigators said she was wearing a helmet.
Friends say she was “a natural leader with a positive spirit.” Our thoughts are with Dewolf’s family and friends.
Mervin Manufacturing co-founder Mike Olson has been weird sciencing the snowboard world for nearly three decades. Some would argue (us included) that Olson (along with partner Peter Saari and Steven Cobb) responsible for more design advancements in snowboard and ski technology than any other living person. Beginning with the carving snowboard, parabolic sidecut, and cap construction, and continuing on with reverse camber, and augmented snowboard edge shapes, Olson has been going against conventional wisdom for his entire career. For the past two years Olson has been working exclusively on a new project involving what he calls “waterboards” or what the rest of us call surfboards.
Jeff Henderson, Mike Olson, Pete Saari and the new Lib Tech waterboards.
We’ve been hearing about these new surfboards for a while but we’d never seen any, most likely because he’s purposefully been keeping them out of the line-ups of Southern California breaks. Then during the Agenda Show in Long Beach we got into a late-night elevator at the Hyatt and ran into a crew from Mervin Manufacturing. They had four of the new surfboards and were taking them up to their room. We were so blown away by the boards and so interested in feeling, squeezing, and holding them that we forgot to even take a picture. We didn’t know it at the time, but in typical Mervin Manufacturing strategy Mike decided to present the surfboards to the world at the Snowsports Industries of America Show in Denver, Colorado last week where very few of the attendees would even know enough about surfing to be impressed.
We couldn’t believe what we were seeing, it’s game-changing. As much as we can say from only holding them, the boards live up to the hype. They are light, well-shaped, and (after seeing four knocked to the floor) unbelievable durable. We had some questions, and luckily Mike Olson was there to answer them in excruciating detail.
Halfway through our interview PR maven Lora Bodmer cut in to make sure Olson wasn’t giving away any trade secrets, but other than that we got 28 minutes of the straight scoop.
Real and true and honest moments are so rare in corporate snowboard sport that when they occur it drops the bottom half of our brains out into our laps and leaves us dumbfounded and quivering. That what happened last night (January 29, 2012) when two-time Olympic Gold Medalist, five-time Winter X Games Gold medalist, Target Clothing Designer, video game character, and 2012 Businessweek Power 100 number 8Shaun White dropped in on his third and final run in the Winter X Games Halfpipe Finals.
White had already won the gold medal with a score of 94 points, edging second place finisher Iouri Podladtchikov by one point. White was perfectly set up to take a victory lap. He could have just made a four hit run of 23 foot straight airs and the gold would still have been his. But Shaun had some unfinished business. In his second run, White had gone down on his last hit. It was the unveiling of his frontside double-cork 1260 and he didn’t land it. We could tell the moment he dropped in on his final run that he was going to try it again.
As we all know, Shaun landed the back-to-back backside double cork 1260 to frontside double cork 1260 on his last two hits and was awarded the first perfect 100 point score in X Games history. And while it seems an almost too perfectly scripted finish for a Walt Disney Company owned made-for-TV entrainment event property, the truth is Shaun White’s run was one of those real, true, honest moments in snowboarding were an athlete’s performance rises above all the bullshit that surrounds the event, the marketing, and the hype and stands alone on its own screaming for everyone to hear: this is snowboarding.
Shaun White seemed as stoked as we all were. “It’s unreal. I’ve been wanting that 100 forever,” he said. “Thank you everyone here tonight. This is unreal. . . I came here on a mission. I couldn’t compete in slopestyle. I was sitting around icing my ankle. I took out a little of the anger that I couldn’t compete in slope on the pipe tonight. I was upset with my first front double 12 and wanted to get it.
For one of the first times in X Games television show history we were glad we were somewhere with cable and able to watch, because missing this was missing one of those epic moments.
For those who assumed that maybe after breaking his pelvis and, let’s face it, being old, that Tony Hawk would would slow down, get off his skateboard and coast off into the sunset on his wallet, here’s a little proof to the contrary.
Utah snowboarder Alecsander Barton, 24, died Saturday, Janaury 28, 2012 after being buried in a self-triggered 700-foot-wide avalanche after dropping in from the top of Kessler Peak, according to a story in the Deseret News.
Barton’s death came on the heels of a slew of avalanche warnings prompted by heavy snowfall and weak snowpack. . . “The backcountry conditions are extremely dangerous,” Hoyal said. “This is a sad reminder for people to know that conditions are so extreme right now that people need to stay out of the backcountry.”
Barton was riding with two friends at the time of his death, and though they were not buried and had proper avalanche equipment it was not enough to save Barton’s life. Our thoughts are with Barton’s family and friends.
