Day 1 already went down, and since I can't ski I've been on PASR and NS all day now....

Ski Superpipe Semi-Finals were yesterday. Tonight is the finals, it's going to be nuts so I'd watch it (ESPN2@9PM). You might even get to see some Slopestyle practice, the setup is NUTS.

Link: http://www.newschoolers.com/web/content/news/news_id/1853/

For those to lazy to click....

The lineup for tonight is T Hall, Dumont, Kevin Rolland, Andreas Hatveit, Mike Riddle, Jossi Wells, Matt Hayward, Colby West, Olenick, and Sean Field.

Pics of the slopestyle:

yeah! been watching the live feed with mens ski slopestyle practice.

Sooo stoked. Not sure where I'm gonna watch it though.

wow thats awesome... slopestyle looks CRAZYYY

timy humphreys is gonna kill shit in snowboard slopestyle

mfm too but you know he has no shot in hell at winning

does anyone know the link to the live webcast

http://expn.go.com/expn/winterx/2008/live/index

pipe is starting now. tannner will own all!

That slopestyle looks just like Blues terrain park....

Tanner just threw an amazing looking run! What was the slow spin he did? looked like a cork 5 or something, dident pay that much attencion... lmao

HATE TO 2x post, but holy balls, that Whisky flip... My jaw droped!!!

Tanner had a solid solid run. I think Olenick got robbed though with the 65. He put his hand down twice but I thought he would of at least gotten 4th place.

I'm tuning in for pipe I missed slopestyle but I'm hoping for re runs. Why is it an 18 foot pipe and not 22? I'm liking it it though, except how they keep saying "amplitude", shut the hell up.

When I go to camelback tomorrow I can't wait to hit a competition grade pipe it should look just like that one. Right? Right? I hope.

You didn't miss slopestyle....thats not until the weekend. All you missed was ski superpipe elimination which was last night.

I'm so stoked for big air tomorrow night. I'm a little disappointed with the slopestyle though, it's lacking jibs.

That whiskey flip is pretty god damn nifty

Wow....Dumont was robbed.....

T-HALL GOLD MEDAL! YEA KIDD!

-Dumont was not robbed, do the math, 5 hits vs 7 hits, all left side spins vs a mix of right and left from tanner, dumont wasent robbed, he just didnt perfrom up to par.

I'm with Justin, and the crowd. Dumont got f'ed. I think they should have put him in 1st and made T Hall work for it. Not to mention T Hall is a douche for coming down and being like hey your great but here is what you should do next time. Let him do what he wants he is going bigger than you.

dumont wasent rob, he didnt perform up to par, people dont know this, do the math:

5 hits vs 7
all left spins VS a mix of left/right from tanner
amplitude vs video game perfection style/tech and landings

the sport is gearing more towards style and tech not amplitude in the pipe anymore, sure its a crowd pleaser, but they dont decide the results, maybe in big air, but not pipe.

The judges were just bitching because T Hall got more hits out of the pipe than Dumont. They were using him as a role model of what the other skiers should do in their run, which makes sense, his runs were perfect.

If they're aren't judging so much towards amplitude, then how come Andreas placed so low?

well the thing with andreas is that he was probably the lowest of any of the skiers, and im sure the judges need a default for the amplitude since it is a category, however ampltude does not outweight number of hits, style, tech, landings, etc

Word... So good to see half pipe - do I dare say progress?

Nice to see pipe going to a whole new level. In spite of the lameness of the announcers, they did a great job of hyping to the general public. Thank goodness the judges favored the more varied hits (tanner) than Simons big air spinning all the same way. Pipe and comps would have taken a step in the wrong direction had Simon one. IMO!!!

Don't get me wrong, I screamed holy shit! at Simons 3rd run, 1st hit, the same way backflips amaze people watching from the lifts, that huge hit was amazing, but it is the whole run that counts, not one hit. That freakin Aspen crowd was the same way, they couldn't see the technicality of Tanners run but could see Simons 20 foot boost 5 feet higher than everyone else. Stupidly ignorant mob mentality ruined some aspects of that comp for me.

BTW - Tanner told Simon that he is the better skier, but that he should have spun both ways. Props to Tanner for not having the previous years bullshit speeches and I am super stoked to see him give a nod to the olympics! I tend to agree with Tanner, had Simon spun both ways and grabbed he should have won. The bigger debate is on the 3rd place finish. Colby was impressive no doubt, in some ways I think he should have finished better than Simon.

As time goes on it will be interesting to see how this comp interfaces with the FIS and USSA comps. Style versus Height and Spinning. and................ No disrespect to snowboarding - but I really hope they compare skiing and snowboarding 1/2 pipe Saturday night.

Warning.. Claim....... I am super stoked to know that we will be in Aspen to watch the slopestyle on Sunday. WOOOOOT!

Agreed.... There apparently is some politics/marketing/TV hype going on. Andreas run was like a smaller version of Tanners run. I can't wait to start watching recaps of runs on youtube. I am betting that in a few weeks, more will say that Simon should have scored lower than he did. Tanner, Andreas, Colby, Simon - should have been the results IMO!

Judging percentages, criteria and formulas for the X games should be published. I am sure that all those judges were dead on with thier assesments, just not too sure about the formula.

Jon's Video Blog recap is up !!!! Check it out!!

X Games 12 Skier 1/2 Pipe Finals

I went nuts on Simon's 20ft hit, and I totally agree with papasteeze when it came towards the crowd. What was up with them throwing snowballs at tanner? However I do think jossi was def robbed, his final run was so sick

I read some good analogies of the persona in the crowds.. something along the lines of a bunch of Areyx/spider wearing joeys with out a clue as to whether they were watching big air or half pipe.

Simon's run was BIG. But Tanners run was Flawless. Everything was pretty much perfect. Simon just hucked himself pretty much, but had very little style while tanners shit looked real clean.. It's good to see that it's not going in the direction of who can just throw themselves as hard as possible and look like shit, but still win.

hahah "joeys" i love that word...anyway, who is ready for BIG AIR TONIGHT!!!!!!! how about that 85ft+ channel gap. My money is on Jon or Charles, since TJ is out due to a tore ACL, thankfully both jon and gagnier are on my FFL team!

Definitely Jon. Hes sooo dreamy......

agreed though it seems like the simon/tanner debate happens every year.

Anyone remember the first X Games with skiing pipe holy shit was it bad, its good to see the sport moving in the right direction.

Sometimes I wish Tanner finished high school, imagine if pipe makes the Olymipics and he would win....a good interview it wouldn't be (he too old thank god). Though Armada is now the fifth largest producer of twins, so he did pretty fucking good all things considered.

Tanner totally deserved it. Andreas got jipped big time. And I am SO glad to see Colby on the podium haha. He's definitely my favorite skier out there. Simon went huge, as usual..but that's about it..

Hopefully slopestyle is good this year, the past couple of years its been shit because of weather.

Where the hell is tonights stuff? All I got is the 52164315 basketball game ESPN has televised this year.

its on ESPN at 9:30

live streaming.. http://expn.go.com/expn/winterx/2008/live/index

i'm watching it now. pretty sick womens pipe. i love watching chicks slice up the snow. such a turn-on.

Tell me about it, so glad my girlfriend rips, a girlfriend either has to not board and let you go, or go and rip with you. If they go and suck, that would be the worst. My girlfriend does jumps and rails but hasn't done a pipe yet (probably because we can't find a good one, I have only dropped into 2 so far this year, and neither was great)


The women went off tonight, they're stepping it up every year so much I think its almost more fun to watch the women because you can practically watch the progression of the group. You go to mens and its more about who can land their tricks in one run, most of them can do those tricks in practice so its just a competition composure thing, where as the women are riding on the edge of their ability during the comp. Go back and look at the olympics from a few years ago, tonight trashed that. Where as if you look at mens last year vs last olympics vs SLC olympics, it hasn't progressed nearly as much because they're getting close to the limit of it. I'm really impressed, the only thing is its the same 3 or 4 girls, so it is moving the bar up and they're young, but I would like to see the rest of the field get stronger.

wow such a nasty switch octo from gagnier, im learning it this weekend no doubt

you mean you dont know how to do it already? man you must suck.

are you joking? ive been skiing for my 2nd season, learning a switch octo isnt too shabby

The X-games announcers rock......NOT

haha dude i'm kidding. if anybody around here could do something like him they would be on tour or on the x-games as well.

Tell me about it, its like sticking a fork in my ear the whole time. What the hell is amplitude? We complain about it every year but the XGames are the only place the word is used in relation to snowboarding and skiing, it kills me. He got a lot of air he got high out of the pipe, he didn't get a bunch of amplitude, amplitude is a measurement not a thing what the hell.

If I had to hear one more time about the Rolls Royce with ski racks on it during the skier big air I was going to throw my snowboard through the TV.

haha they were like

he says if he wins hes gonna get a rolls royce with a ski rack on top
thinking of that rolls royce with a ski rack on top
o he's gonna get his rolls
I hear hes getting that rolls royce with a ski rack on top
rolls royce with a ski rack on top !

STFU

all i know is that the chicks that can rip are freakin awesome... and its even better when they are hot like the Aussie Torah Bright...

yes!! Torah kills it and is hot as helll... i mean kelly clark kills it too but she looks like a man so.... yea haha

Torah is bangin and rips harder than I ever will. I like Kelly's style a lot though.



Who says Burton shit never breaks? How embarrassing for Burton, and how much does that say about White that he can throw down on a broken board?

that sucks so bad for white.. but this was the worst slopestyle ive ever watched for snowboarding... the 2nd round was a waste cause i think about 7 of the 8 riders slid out on the landing of the 2nd jump.. the girls killed it earlier and i think the guys got screwed

anywho i love eero and i was rooting for him to medal but he got 4th.. the announcers were saying that there was a rumor going around that eero could throw a switch triple back on the money booter which would of been ridiculous, but as i mentioned before he was one of the unlucky 7 to wash out on the landing of the 2nd jump in the 2nd round

Yea what a bad time to do it. If they don't have lights do it during the day,or buy some damn lights. I'd rather have it taped and aired 3 hours later and have the guys land it, than have half the runs shown be washed out. And I liked the jumps but this was definately not the best slopestyle course ever. The jump line was good but there weren't any super hard rails, everyone was just gap 270 to front board that box, which isn't even all that hard, and very little unique was going on with that up box. Danny Kass bonked the tip yesterday which was cool but he didn't make it to the finals, which was lame.

i agree... everyone was ether doing a back 180 off the up box or tail 270/450 but eero did frontflip off but thats about it..

and with the battleship box everyone gapped 270.. except eero nosepress to front board and i think it was kevin pearce who did a noseslide gap to frontboard..


not a big fan of the course