Day three here at the Winter Dew Tour stop in Breckenridge brought sunny skies, little wind and some big halfpipe action as the Men's Superpipe Open Qualifiers got underway this morning. Today 50+TK guys took to the stunt ditch in hopes of making it to tomorrow's Superpipe prelims, but in the end, only nine would move on: the top three from each of the two heats and the next three overall scores from the entire field. In the end, local Breck boy Duncan Adams took the highest score of the day, beating out the next rider by nearly five points.
Most the field today opted out of throwing double flips, including Duncan Adams, who also, did not spin more than a 720. Adams runs, which have become legendary throughout the halfpipe world, are stylish and mostly switch takeoffs, something not often seen in the pipe. Big 540s, switch straight airs, 720s, switch alley-oop 720s… Duncan put down two runs of high-caliber, fluid and tremendously techincal trickery.
In second, the Frenchman Thomas Krief did utilize the pipe double flip 900 to anchor his run, filling it with 900s and a steezy alley-oop flatpsin 540 shifty to win Heat 2. Pipe veteran Tyler Petersen grabbed third place (overall) by being a dictionary of technical tricks. 1080s, 900s, 540s, et al… pretty standard lot for a vet like Tyler. Little Mitch Gilman snagged the overall 4th spot (2nd in Heat 2) by going as massive as his little frame could and dropping tricks like switch alley-oop 900s.
Places five through nine were occupied by Canadian pipe skiers Noah Bowman, Rob Heule and Matt Margetts. All three riders had technical switch and forward tricks, but lacked either one super difficult trick (like a double) or consistent amplitude that the higher finishers all possessed. Just sneaking in were Walter Wood and Sean Collin, but sneaking in is all that matters. Tomorrow is a new day and you get two new runs. Other highlights included: Wing Tai Barrymore's massive alley-oop flatsping doubles, yet he could quite stomp them. Joss Christensen's nearly all-switch runs. JP Solberg coming out of hiding and going large. Bobby Brown getting his feet wet in the Superpipe side of things. Benoit Valentin just about keeping his pipe double 900 in check. And Nils Lauper went dangerously big.
Although today's weather was an incredible treat for all to behold, tomorrow's forecast could go either way. Snow would most likely keep amplitudes and double flip mania to a minimum while blue skies and cold weather will crack up the dial to 11. These nine qualifiers will meet the pre-qualified pipe athletes like last year's Breckenridge Winner Mike Riddle, last wekeend's Grand Prix winner Justin Dorey, 2010 X Games champ Kevin Rolland and 2010 Gatoade Free Flow winner, Torin Yater-Wallace. Super-qualified Jossi Wells, Simon Dumont and Xavier Bertoni are automatically sent to Saturday morning's finals.
Men's Open Superpipe Qualifiers: 1. Duncan Adams — 89.25 2. Thomas Krief — 84.75 3. Tyler Peterson — 79.75 4. Mitch Gilman — 78.50 5. Noah Bowman — 77.75 6. Rob Heule — 77.00 7. Matt Margetts — 75.50 8. Walter Wood — 74.75 9. Sean Collin — 72.50
The full Winter Dew Tour Breckenridge TV schedule as follows:
