Winter Dew Tour Wraps Up in Breckenridge

Danny Davis – cr. Jennifer Huskey / Lat34

The first stop of the Winter Dew Tour wrapped up Sunday in Breckinridge, Co., and six athletes are each $15,000 richer.

It’s a record setting event—the first winter tour for the huge Dew/Alli empire, the first exhibition for women freeskiers, and unlike the one-week, one-stop X Games, there are three stops in the Winter Dew, where repeat winners can total up huge prizes  to rival the heavy money X Games. In addition, women winners in snowboard pipe and slopestyle will get paid the same as the men.

Shaun White got his loot for winning Saturday’s snowboard slopestyle contest, while nearly unknown Canadian rider Spencer O’Brien had the run of her life and ruled women’s snowboard slopestyle, scoring seven points higher than her closest competition.

But gasps of awe and screams of joy went to Breck local Bobby Brown, who won freeski slopestyle with ever bigger tricks as he rode his run, most of them switch, including a switch misty 1080—upside down and twisting—to a switch double rodeo 900 from the top of one jump, and spinning like a gyroscope off the others.

The show continued Saturday night under bright lights, when freeskier Tanner Hall shook off all the rest to land the first 1080 of his career—at the bottom of the superpipe. He went on with back to back nines, and tricked all the way to the bottom.

While there are lots of women who go big on boards, there are not yet enough women freeskiers who throw down well enough to contest for the best at the Winter Dew, so while there are women freeskiing pipe and slopestyle exhibitions, they’re not yet part of the official contests.

Sunday’s finals were bluebird all the way, after a week of qualifying and contests where the snow never stopped. “Today was the first day it didn’t snow, but we still had great competitions the whole time. In the open qualifiers, there were close to 250 athletes,” said Chris Prybylo, the Dew’s Vice President of Events.

The wrap up was total pipe, and Gretchen Bleiler continued her domination, with halfpipe amplitude rarely seen in women riders. Danny Davis won superpipe.

Prybylo said, “We didn’t have any double winners; nobody won more than one event. Shaun White won slopestyle and finished second in superpipe. I think everyone competed really well every day.”

He went on to rave about newcomer Bobby Brown. “He’s only 17, and I think he’s going to be a great athlete. He had an incredible run Saturday. All of these guys are competing for the Dew Cup. No one has the most points yet because it’s the first event. They are also competing for an overall bonus purse that will be awarded at the finals.”

When Prybylo was asked if hearty partying was underway, he hedged a bit, then diplomatically said, “they were in a contest, they wrapped it up. I think everyone’s going to enjoy themselves tonight.”

The Winter Dew Tour stops next at Mt. Snow Resort in Dover, Vt. on Jan. 8-11, then to the season finals at Northstar-at-Tahoe in Lake Tahoe, Ca., on Feb. 19-22. Each stop will have the Dew’s signature “Village,” concerts, bands and dancing in the streets.

For more about the contest, check out the Winter Dew Tour website.

Here are the podium results of all the events:

Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle Finals
1. Shaun White, Carlsbad, Calif. 95.17.
2. Mikkel Bang, Norway, 92.33.
3. Janne Korpi, Finland, 86.17.

Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle Finals
1. Spencer O’Brien, Canada, 85.00.
2. Jenny Jones, Great Britain, 77.33.
3. Bev Vuilleumier, South Lake Tahoe, Calif., 74.17.

Men’s Freeski Slopestyle Finals
1. Bobby Brown, Breckenridge, Colo., 90.50.
2. Josiah Wells, New Zealand, 89.50.
3. Henrik Harlaut, Sweden, 85.67.

Men’s Freeski Superpipe Finals
1. Tanner Hall, Kalispell, Mont., 90.75.
2. Justin Dorey, Canada, 85.50.
3. Duncan Adams, Breckenridge, Colo., 81.00.

Men’s Snowboard Superpipe Finals
1. Danny Davis – 94.75
2. Shaun White – 93.50
3. Scotty Lago – 90.00

Women’s Snowboard Superpipe Finals
1. Gretchen Bleiler – 90.25
2. Kelly Clark – 86.75
3. Elena Hight – 82.00