Just a few short days after the X Games concluded, the best in slopestyle and pipe have made their way out East to Mt. Snow for the third and final stop of the Winter Dew Tour. After a day o’ practice and a quick training session this morning, it was on for the slopestyle men. In the end, it was none other than Sammy Carlson, who had to qualify after losing some esoteric tie-breaker between Bobby Brown (who is pre-qualified for tomorrow’ finals. Both are tied for 3rd in Dew Cup points). Under sunny skies, yet windy and bone-chilling weather, a quick and rapid-fire prelims went down today.
The course: up box to gap to down box (lots of guys gap straight to the down), an up box, the toyota truck box placed uphill like a canon box, a small sized table, down rail or down box option, followed by two bigger jumps.
Pasty C is always a man on a mission, and continued his season of slopestyle wreckage with another dominant performance today. Sitting in first place after his first run, and staying that way until the end, it was Pasty’s smooth style and technical trickery that put him there.
Taking up the 2nd, 3rd and 4th spots were no other than the Quebec crew of Charles Gagnier, Alexis Godbout and JF Houle, respectively. Gagnier spun like a stop, Alexis utilized his switch misty 900 and JF The Houle-igan went tech as hell on the rails to do so. Consistent dual-performer Jossi Wells skied well enough for 5th, keeping him in the mix, never to be counted out.
Alex Schlopy’s leftside 900 to switch right 1260 gave him enough oomph with the judges to break the qualifying ranks while Dew Tour Wild card Joe Schuster back 630ed off the canon-truck to grab that 7th spot. Elvis Harsheim (whose new nickname is The King, apparently) stomped the hell out of a run, and his switch 1080 at the bottom to advance. And sneaking in that last spot was McRae Williams, who used his rightside rodeo 900 and switch 1080s to bump out Sean Jordan, LJ Strenio and Phil Casabon for that bubble spot.
Unfortunately, as there can only be nine taken to tomorrow’s finals, guys like TJ Schiller, Matt Walker, aforementioned Casabon, Ian Cosco and Simon Dumont got left behind. Dumont combo switch 900 to switch 1080 wasn’t quite what the judges were looking for, while Walker couldn’t put down a clean run. Ian Cosco’s double 1260 wasn’t enough to pique the judges interest, and rookie Gus Kenworthy’s 360 backswap to 270 out (and technical run) wasn’t good enough for the judges, apparently.
The top nine guys will meet super-qualified Andreas HÃ¥tveit, Tom Wallisch and Bobby Brown in tomorrow morning’s battle for glory. As the last stop of the tour, the race for the Dew Cup is tight threrfore the race for that cash money is also on. Hopefully the weather holds and the event will see some slopestyle ridiculousness go down.
Check Freeskier.com for your Winter Dew Tour updates, stay tuned later tonight for results and story from the Superpipe Qualifier that happens at 4 PM EST.
Men’s Top 9 Advanced:
1) Sammy Carlson
2) Charles Gagnier
3) Alexis Godbout
4) JF Houle
5) Jossi Wells
6) Alex Schlopy
7) Joe Schuster
8) Elvis Harsheim
9) McRae Williams
