It was a final littered with falls. The star of the qualifiers, Spain’s Queralt Castellet, didn’t even make it to the finals. She went down during practice and was pulled out of the pipe on a sled.
When the finals began it seemed like the sitting and slamming only intensified. Hannah Teter was the lone favorite to survive in the first run and her safe, conservative run seemed to surprise the judges into giving her a 42.4. Nerves?
In the second run Torah Bright turned it on, landed her run (watch the video here), and no one could catch her. Gretchen Bleiler went down on her second run as did the lone Canadian Mercedes Nicholl. Kelly Clark threw down a big run with a slight sketch or two and was given a 42.2 by the judges. It was only good enough for bronze.
We’re sure when we’re all given time to review the video some of the scoring will appear even stranger, but the one thing that cannot be taken away was Torah Bright’s performance under pressure. Her run was exactly what was required and she stomped it.
Women’s Olympic HP Results:
1. Torah Bright 45
2. Hannah Teter 42.4
3. Kelly Clark 42.2
4. Jaiyu Liu 39.3
5. Sophie Rodriguez 34.4
6. Mercedes Nicoll 34.3
7. Zhifeng Sun 33
8. Holly Crawford 30.3
9. Ursina Haller 27.9
10. Elena Hight 24.6
11. Gretchen Bleiler 14.7
12. Queralt Castellet DNS
When the qualifiers for the Women’s Olympic Halfpipe event begin today at 12:30 PM PT in the pipe at Cypress Mountain 30 women from 14 different countries will be competing for one of three spots on the podium. First to drop in will be Australia’s Torah Bright.
The biggest battle will go down between Bright, Spain’s Queralt Castellet, and Americans Kelly Clark, Hannah Teter, Gretchen Bleiler, and Elana Hight.
Directly to finals from qualifiers:
1. Torah Bright 45.8 Australia
2. Kelly Clark 45.4 US
3. Queralt Castellet 44.3 Spain
4. Hannah Teter 42.7 US
5. Gretchen Bleiler 40.2 US
6. Zhifeng Sun 39.9 China
Semi-finals begin at 4 PM PT and the finals (including the top six women from the semis) begins at 6 PM PT.
Follow the live scoring right here. We’ll link of a live feed if we can find one. Lost that one.
Creditors including the estate of collapsed bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., who have sought control of Intrawest since it missed a final payment in December on a $1.4 billion loan, agreed to extend the deadline for the auction until Feb. 26, according to the person, who declined to be identified because terms are private.
Nice of them not to dirty up the Olympic proceedings with some financial realities isn’t it?
In a post on AngrySnowboarder.com (pointed out to us by SouthoftheNorth’s Jonny Burns) the Angry One discovered that all the snowboarders who are currently appearing in the 2010 Olympics have had their names and likenesses removed from the team pages of their sponsor’s websites.
Except as permitted by the IOC Executive Board, no competitor, coach, trainer or official who participates in the Olympic Games may allow his person, name, picture or sports performances to be used for advertising purposes during the Olympic Games.
Guess that explains the Scott Lago hole in the Flow website (above right) as well as Louie Vito missing on Omatic, Shaun White, Kelly Clark, Hannah Teter et. al. missing from the on the Burton site, etc. etc. etc. . . Now, if you’re an official Olympic sponsor, then it’s a completely different game. Another not-so-subtle reminder that the Olympics really are all about the money.
This Saturday, February 20, 2010 J. Strickland is opening his first solo photography show at Philedelphia’s UBIQ. The show titled “The Sun Rises in the East” (featured in Skatebook #6) includes new photography of iconic skaters KevinTaylor, Mike Maldonado, Burton Smith, Zered Bassett, Luker Lou, Daniel Kim, Charles Lamb and others.
Strickland’s style and approach are best described as grimmie sharpe, very real and intense capturing the real feel of the East. We encourage you to pass this invitation along, limited edition 24″x36″ dye ink prints will be sold at this event as well as the newest Edition of SKATEBOOK which features the body of work.
In all this Olympic snowboarding hoopla we totally spaced on the complete redesign and relaunch of our favorite independent skate news site Skatedaily.net.
According to a post on Monday, February 15, 2010 Bryce Kanights says they’ve finally done it:
We’ve booted our old publishing platform to the curb and today dawns a new era for SKATEDAILY.net, you, and your friends, and our collective community. As you can see, our site has received a much needed face-lift with larger type, larger images and an extensive of stack of archived data that you have all been asking for. Bear with us as we still have some tweaking and modifications to handle on the site. All the same, with the data migration process at almost 90% complete, you can now utilize SKATEDAILY.net’s “Search” window to locate a particular news post about a skater, city, event, or organization. Guaranteed, if we’ve posted something newsworthy about what you’re searching for over the past six years, it’s in there.
It’s been a long time coming, and it looks good. Check it out when you have the chance.
What is the story? Well, as much as we were hoping for some new story, there was none to be had. Shaun White marched in like he owned the Gold and even though Peetu Piiroinen and Scotty Lago put in some biggest runs of their lives but there was really no one who could beat Shaun White but Shaun.
When he put down his first run minus the McDouble finish he showed the world that he was making runs with the dial set on 8 just in case he had to turn it up a little in the second run. Turns out he didn’t have to. So what does he do in his final run? Victory lap? Nope. He steps it up and just for fun lays down an even better run than his first and bumps his score up two more points just to prove to himself that if he’s had to do it he could have.
“That was the best victory run of my life,” White said. “On this world stage, why not deliver something spectacular? I feel like I came all the way to Canada, I talked about this trick so much, (poured) blood sweat and tears to land it, and there it was.”
“I can’t even describe it,” White said. “It’s one of those things where I can’t even tell you or begin to describe how many times I’ve gone over this run in my mind, gone over this competition in my head, imagined what it would be like … I can finally go to sleep now.”
Maybe after a short nap Shaun can take a little time off so he an focus on his skateboarding. . . you think?
The finals results in the 2010 Men’s Olympic Halfpipe from Cypress are as follows:
1. Shaun White 48.4
2. Peetu PIIROINEN 45
3. Scott Lago 42.8
4. Iouri Podladtchikov 42.4
5. Louie Vito 39.4
6. Markku Koski 36.4
7. Justin Lamoureux 35.9
8. Kazuhiro Kokubo 35.7
9. Ryo Aono 32.9
10. Mathiew Crepel 25.9
11. Markus Malin 18.6
12. Greg Bretz 18.3
By edging Deborah Anthonioz and Olivia Nobs in Snowboard Cross Canada’s Maelle Ricker brought home Canada’s second Gold medal of the games. Lindsay Jacobelis fell in a semi-final and ended up placing fifth by winning the 5-8 final.
Kyle Cryblskey, 23, of Battle Ground, Washington was riding with his girlfriend at Mount Hood Meadows on Saturday, February 13, 2010 when he crashed off a jump according to KATU.com.
. . . he reportedly took a jump and crashed during landing. He later died from his injuries. . . Kyle’s father says he loved the outdoors almost as much as he loved his family. Cryblskey was not wearing a helmet but it’s unclear if that would have saved him. . . He appeared to have landed on his head, or on one side of his head, said his father, Joe Cryblskey Sr.
Our thoughts are with the entire Cryblskey family.
It was a final littered with falls. The star of the qualifiers, Spain’s Queralt Castellet, didn’t even make it to the finals. She went down during practice and was pulled out of the pipe on a sled.
