We flew in without a hitch and joined the extended camp crew at Laquinta in Silverthorne. Connor Hudson had to skip the trip after a sunday refracture of his his collarbone. Five week break followed by a six week break. That is one tough deal and everyone is feeling Hong Kong's frustration. Rest up, heal up get back in the game.
I guess getting up at 2:15 wasn't early enough because I was standing in bare feet at TSA when I heard Ross' and my name on the loudspeaker. We were the last on the plane but everyone and everything(snowboards) made it here with no furthur close calls. The next day was sunny and cool with a great jump line to approach each pipe lap. It was a solid full day of training on both freestyle contest courses. Ross took the BX crew through each park at every speed and used the whole mtn to get ready for fridays bx course training and saturdays race.
This morning and through the day the pipe contest was stacked with what is possibly the strongest all ametuer feild ever to line up and drop. It's too long of a story to give full coverage after the captains meeting (roll call and bib toss.), Erik Beauchemins birthday, Team meeting, tuning and dinner but here are some high-light's. We had nine guys in a mens field of of 86. Three made top 18. Three more made the top half and three more took a fall. No age group divisions in this and the US rookie team took the top five spots. SMS showed up strong in a greasy-fast hard pipe.
For the women we were equally large and a little more in charge. Lizzy Beerman took home the top spot with a front nine in her run. Jen Cohen took 8th carrying more speed into her hits than Ive ever seen. Shelby followed in twelfth with her style and clean five-three-three combo. Sadie was getting great amp but took a fall on her front five.
Tomorrow am we leave the hotel early for mens slope qualifiers. 7:15 out the door. The race and womens crew along with the third heat boys will take an 8:30 van. The course has been very good with full size jumps (3) that have enough lift to keep speeds manageable followed by three jib features. There are 120 starts vying for the top 18 finals spots. Again the competition will be tough but perfectly worthy. There are some training photos from yesterday in pipe and slope. As you will see, CT is styling the lien air in pipe and front three over the middle jump on the slope course. EB is killing the slope with a cab nine and time to tweak. Hunter is grabbing tail on front seven over the middle jump and Kevin Mattice is doing mute front five if my memeory serves. Updates on the course and qualifiers should follow tomorrow. If not just keep your fingers crossed and we will get back after mens slope finals and womens qualies and finals friday.
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