Mikkel Bang

It may have been a powder day in the rest of New Zealand but the attention was firmly focused on Snow Park NZ’s terrain for the slopestyle finals of the Burton NZ Open. With a field comprised of X-Games gold medalists, TTR leaders, and some of New Zealand’s best, the day promised some serious riding and it didn’t disappoint despite more testing weather conditions.

While the standard was high in both the men’s and the women’s, both winners were stand out in their field with Mikkel Bang (NOR) over 10 points clear of Charles Reid (CAN) and Jamie Anderson (USA) an incredible 24 points clear of her nearest rival, Cheryl Maas (NED).

Mitchel Brown

Even though the weather deteriorated throughout the day, the riders kept stepping up and it was Bang’s final run that earned him the title spot. “I didn’t have any expectations when I set out this morning, the weather wasn’t great but the snow was good and soft and it turned into a really good day!” he said.

His winning run featured a switch frontslide boardslide, Cab 540 nose tap, cab 720 mute, switch backside 900 mute, 270 on the rail, finishing with an alley-opp wallride.

In the women’s field head judge, Jason Grossi, said the results reflected Anderson’s outstanding riding ability. “Jamie dominated from the very beginning, from her amplitude to her spins. Her rail tricks were real clean and technical and she was riding stronger than some of the men including an alley-oop wallride on the final feature.”

Spencer O'Brien

It was also Anderson’s final run that achieved her highest score, starting off with a noseslide, frontside 180 nose bonk, Cab 5, backside 5, gap to tailslide, finishing with an alley-oop wallride. “The jumps were well built and the rails were fun,” she said. “If it had been sunny, it would have been perfect!”

Today’s results mean new top 10 TTR rankings with Mikkel Bang rising 13 places to take top spot in the men’s rankings. Chas Guldemond rose five places to second and Tim Humphreys rises nine places to third. In the women’s, Jamie Anderson hangs onto her top spot while Cheryl Maas climbs three places to second and Sina Candrian rises three places to third.

Today’s results also see two Kiwis enter the TTR top 10 – James Hamilton in seventh and Mitchell Brown in 10th. However, it was Shelly Gottlieb (Queenstown) who took the glory in the Kiwi camp with a fourth place in the women’s comp with a strong first run that put her just three points behind third place winner, Spencer O’Brien (CAN). The highest placed Kiwi male was Nick Hyne in eighth.

The Burton NZ Open finishes tomorrow (Saturday) with the highlight event – the halfpipe finals. For further information and full results, visit opensnowboarding.com