New Leaders At The Burton New Zealand Open

Former champion Jamie Anderson from the good ol’ U.S. of A and hers neighbor to the north Sebastien Toutant blasted through a tough field of pros to win their slopestyle titles and 850 valuable points for the TTR World Snowboarding Tour for the men’s and women’s event.  Unfortunately, there were no Mexicans in the field, which would have shown complete North American dominance.  But they can’t worry about that now.  There’s a halfpipe competition to look forward to tomorrow. 

The day started off early with the women’s event as the round of 16 would shrink down to the 8 final spots.  The Kiwi’s were happy to see one of their own, Shelly Gotlieb represent hard by putting herself comfortably into the semifinals.  It’s just too bad that she couldn’t keep up with American dominance as Jamie Anderson sueeezed her way into the top spot in the finals.

Check out the rest of the press release below…

Jamie Anderson pressed hard on her first and seconds runs, her winning line including a Street Style Tailslide, 5on-To-Fakie on the box, Switch Backside 360, Cab 540 Melon, Frontside 360 Melon and a strong performance on the lower rails and boxes. Her win is an echo of her Southern hemisphere dominance in the 08/09 season and Jamie was definitely happy with her result, “It was fun! Beautiful day, we totally lucked out with the weather, the course was good, people were good, pretty much stoked! I always love coming to the southern hemisphere, definitely good to get a head start on the season. I’m going to do pipe tomorrow and see how everything goes.”

Second place went to Janna Weatherby who found it difficult to collect her tricks into one solid run until her final attempt. Gotlieb was still able to secure third place. Silvia Mittermüller (GER) who finished in 5th place moves into world no. 2 on the TTR rankings followed by Lisa Wiik (NOR) in world no. 3 and Sarka Pancochova in world no. 4.

In the men’s competition, Canadians Sebastian Toutant and Charles Reid made early claims of their intentions in New Zealand with strong semi-final runs, qualifying first and second, with Toutant still managing to save some heat for the finals.

As a massive 42 man contingent fell to just 16, finding the perfect speed for both the upper and lower rails and each successively larger kicker played an important role in determining the podium. Sebastian Toutant, who won his first Burton Global Open Series title in New Zealand, posted his best score with his first run that included a Backside 270 and 50/50 Backside 360 on the rails, a Backside Rodeo 540 Indy, Cab 900 Stale, Backside 1080 Doublecork Melon, and a massive performance on the lower rail section.

Torstein Horgmo of Norway who often places high in Southern Hemisphere events, had difficulties with his first two runs, but came closest to knocking down Toutant finishing second with his final run. US rider Eric Willet placed 3rd. Horgmo moves into world no. 3 on the Swatch TTR rankings followed by Tim Humphreys (USA) in world no. 4, and Charles Reid (CAN) in world no. 5.

With the Slopestyle format now complete, the Swatch TTR 5Star Burton New Zealand Open continues the action with tomorrow’s Halfpipe competition. Tomorrow’s contest guarantees some big ranking changes, possible new TTR Tour leaders and the first major Halfpipe event of 09/10.

For tomorrow’s live webcast head on over to go211.com or ttrworldtour.com, where you’ll also find full ranking lists, and the latests news, blogs and video highlights from New Zealand.