Round and Round and Round

Bad news if you want to be a pro snowboarder: 1080s don’t cut it anymore. Unless, of course, you do three of them in one run, like Andreas Wiig did. Wiig won the slopestyle at the ’07 Honda Session with a run that included 4140 total degrees of rotation, or three 1080s and a 900.

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Wiig has placed second at the Session for the last two years, behind Shaun White. But since Shaun is busy freeriding in Breckenridge, and didn’t return to reclaim his title, Andreas definitely was set up to win. The other riders weren’t going to let him ride away with it easily though.

As I was saying about 1080s not being good enough, other than Wiig, the top 3 riders threw down legitimate 1260s to earn their places. David Benedek completed perhaps the most difficult trick in snowboarding, a double cork 1260, on the final jump. It almost looked like he may overtake Wiig, and though it was close, the best Benedek could muster was second. Third place Chas Guldemond also threw 1260s on the last jump.

The Honda Session is organized in a unique fashion, where only one run counts. That means Wiig took a run worth $30,000. That’s $138 per degree he spun. It sounds like an ok hourly wage, of course, the consequences can be a little rough. Not all riders faired as well as Wiig. Sammy Leubke didn’t earn any money per degree, but did get a broken arm when he smacked the ground on a 900 attempt. So before you decide that being a pro snowboarder is your new cash cow, you might want to spin around 4140 degrees. If you are not dizzy, perhaps you’ve found your calling.

Oh yeah, you might want to prepare yourself for bitter cold (the evening of January 13 was barely above freezing at Vail) and work on your style too. On top of having to spin thousands of degrees, you have to look good while doing it. Wiig, Benedek and Guldemond have definitely mastered it, so maybe its best for the rest of us to just leave it to them.