At the Burton European Open this weekend, the juniors took over the massive BEO halfpipe up on Crap Sogn Gion for the finals competition under heavy snowfall.
At 9am, there was over 30 cm of new snow on the ground and in the pipe, and the snow continued to fall heavily all day. Fifteen-year-old Silje Norendal from Norway, who also placed second in yesterday’s junior slopestyle competition, put together the best run in the junior girls competition, despite challenging conditions. She started her run by throwing down a big method air to frontside air, followed by a solid backside air, into a front 3 indy, followed by a Cab 5 mute, to front 5, finishing with a stylish ally-oop handplant.
The young rippers made the best of the powder conditions, charging as hard as they could to gain enough speed to rip through the snow-filled halfpipe. The snow was falling so heavily and fast that the pipe filled up almost as soon as it was cleared out. Laax’s pipe crew led by Ivan Capaul worked tirelessly throughout today’s competition to clear deep snow from the bottom of the halfpipe so the juniors could try to put their runs together.
In the younger girls halfpipe competition, the winner was thirteen-year-old French rider Emma Claire Bernard, who also won yesterday’s slopestyle competition for her age group.
Top invited riders like Shaun White, Antti Autti, Danny Davis, Andy Finch, Nicolas Müller, Kevin Pearce, Cheryl Maas, Jamie Anderson, Torah Bright and Kelly Clark have all landed in Laax, just in time to enjoy the incredible powder and get ready to compete in the BEO 6-Star TTR slopestyle semi-finals on Tuesday and the halfpipe semi-finals on Wednesday.
Result Halfpipe Girls Juniors
1 Silje Norendal (NOR) 69.7
2 Cilka Sadar (SLO) 61.3
3 Melanie Hofmeister (GER) 58.8
4 Alicia Bonnaud (FRA) 52.5
5 Mirabelle Thovex (FRA) 50.7
Result Halfpipe Girls Youth
1 Emma Claire Bernard (FRA) 33.2
2 Chloé Trespeuch (FRA) 19.0
Find out more about the Burton Global Open Series.
All the lowdown on the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour.
