BRECKENRIDGE — At times, it seems snowboarders defy gravity.
Overcoming Mother Nature? Well, that’s a whole different story.
Snow smothered the superpipe finals in the Winter Dew Tour’s Nike 6.0 Open on Saturday at Breckenridge, slowing the mountain’s new (and rather lengthy) 22-foot pipe and leaving competitors struggling to put down anything remotely resembling their normal runs.
“Those were the worst conditions I’ve ever done a contest in,” veteran rider Steve Fisher said. “What can you do? I mean, it was just dumping. . . . I wish I could’ve just gone and ridden ‘pow.’ “
And with competitors continuously falling and slipping out (all six women in the snowboard finals fell on at least one of their two runs), the smallest rider of the men’s field was the only one who could rise above the fray.
Slow pipe, meet Louie Vito.
The high flier from Ohio torched a second run that kicked off with a frontside double cork 1080 followed by a cab double cork 1080, and Vito’s score of 90.25 (out of a possible 100) was more than 15 points higher than anyone else.
“Maybe I just chuck it harder. I’m smaller going harder, maybe. I don’t know,” he said, struggling to come up with an explanation for his astonishing performance.
Steamboat Springs rider Matt Ladley finished second with a 75.0, and Olympian Greg Bretz was third.
On the women’s side, Spain’s Queralt Castellet took down the field by simply staying up. The Spaniard and defending champ put together a slick second run that included a frontside 900 and topped the women’s snowboard pipe finals on a day when her competition couldn’t land.
“A lot of people who could ride pretty good had a lot of difficulty today,” she said. “You couldn’t do a lot, but you had to do something.”
Elena Hight landed a backside 900 on her second run to move into second place, and Kaitlyn Farrington was third.
The skiers were a bit luckier with the weather, as the heavy snow hadn’t quite come yet. This allowed Simon Dumont to hit what he called “the best run of his life.” The only problem was he had to do it twice.
A bad binding snapped on his ski at the bottom of the pipe, sending him through the finish line in a heap. It canceled out a run that included two double flips and a soaring alley-oop 720. Somehow, he was able to put it down again, edging out Canadian Justin Dorey for the win.
Dania Assaly won the women’s final after U.S. Halfpipe Grand Prix champion Rosa- lind Groenewoud fell on both her runs.
