george crosland photo blog

Yea, Shaun White had no problems beating a very stacked field of riders today at the opening round of the Grand Prix of Snowboarding. It all went down in the pipe at Breckenridge where the high was 11 and the low was minus 14, ouch. Even Steve Fisher, who lives in Breck said it was “way too cold”. Speaking of Steve Fisher, Steve followed right on Shaun’s heel steps with two very solid runs. Following Steve was Elijah Teter.

Elijah’s 3rd place run consisted of a huge backside 7 into a switch Method to cab 7 to front 9 to back 9. Steve’s run was made up of the following; frontside air, back 9, front 7, cab 10, front 10. So what did Mr. White do? Let us see; Lien, back 9, front 10, cab 10, melon front 9, Mctwist, all to win it in his first run. Shaun had one more trick in there than Steve. Shaun said the pipe looked “fantastic”

The rest of the field looked very strong too. Luke Wynen made the comment that it was similar to a US Open as far as the competitiveness went. The finalist included; Shaun White (USA), Steve Fisher (USA), Crispin Lipscomb (Canada), JJ Thomas (USA), Elijah Teter (USA), Tore-V Holvik (Norway), Justin Lamoureux (Canada), Ryoh Aono (Japan), Kohdai Watanabe (Japan), Luke Motrani (USA), Gary Zebrowski (France), Kevin Pearce (USA), Dol Wal Van Der (Netherlands)*, Keir Dillon (USA), Jack Mitrani (USA), Brad Martin (Can)

The girls were the too, we did not forget about them. It was pretty much the Gretchen Bleiler, Kelly Clark and Hannah Teter show. No one else really came close. Gretchen said the pipe “was really fun” which made sense since she won. Consistent tricks down the tube won it for Gretchen. Kelly Clark went huge but was not a consistent and got second. Hannah Teter kind of went big and tech and got third place.

Elena Hight went large but not in charge enough to podium

Danny Davis seemed to be having the most fun even though he failed to make the finals. All the riders were having fun, riding all day, enjoying the real snow

Women’s event winner Gretchen Bleiler and friend

Steve Fisher rocking the MFM steez

Siblings Teter – Hannah and Elijah. Hey they both got third today!

Shaun White seemed stoked to be there

Louie Vito, Hannah Teter and Luke Mitrani

The Shaun!

Ellery Hollingsworth got 4th place in the women’s group

Kelly Clark – front 7 and second place

Kevin Pearce was on fire – 5th place

This guy, Gary Zebrowski, was from France and Tahiti. Obviously he learned to ride in France and not Tahiti

Steve Fisher beat Shaun at the X Games but today he had to settle for second – he was pumped though

Shaun White – crazy ass back 9 in his winning run

Gretchen Bleiler cripples her way to first

Kevin Pearce-massive front 7

Elijah Teter, Shaun White and Steve Fisher on the men’s podium

Women’s podium, Hannah Teter, Kelly Clark and my favorite, Gretchen Bleiler

Cheers Jack Mitrani, both him and his brother Luke made the finals

Steve Fisher right after his kick ass second run

Keir Dillon what 20 feet out. Keir got 4th place against a serious bunch of snowboarders, then took over the mic for Fuel TV during the exhibition later. Talk about multi tasking

Cold as Hell

Shaun White – frontside melon

Kohdai Watanabe from Japan

Hannah Teter, third place…

and her brother Elijah, third place

Results

Women
1 Gretchen Bleiler
2 Kelly Clark
3 Hannah Teter
4 Ellery Hollingsworth

Men
1 Shaun White
2 Steve Fisher
3 Elijah Teter
4 Keir Dillon
5 Kevin Pearce

Thats what it seems like today after the mens qualifiers took place. Shaun White took top qualifying honors with a score of 47.9 and Steve Fisher qualified second with a 47.70. Wgat is bigger news though is who did not make the finals; Michael Golschmidt, Danny Davis, Louie Vito, Tommy Czeschin, Chad Otterstrom all failed to make the cut, barely, though. It may have been the format though. They took the top four from each heat and some heats were more stacked than others. Whatevs, that is snowboard business I guess. It will be sick to see Shaun and Steve duke it out tomorrow. Mason Aguirre, Danny Kass and a few others did not show up

Here is who made the cut, in order, incuded are the country names cuz a lot of relatively unkown dudes from int’l spots made the finals
Shaun White (USA), Steve Fisher (USA), Crispin Lipscomb (Canada), JJ Thomas (USA), Elijah Teter (USA), Tore-V Holvik (Norway), Justin Lamoureux (Canada), Ryoh Aono (Japan), Kohdai Watanabe (Japan), Luke Motrani (USA), Gary Zebrowski (France), Kevin Pearce (USA), Dol Wal Van Der (Neterlands)*, Keir Dillon (USA), Jack Mitrani (USA), Brad Martin (Can)

My predictions
1) Shaun White
2) Steve Fisher
3) Kevin Pearce
4) Like Mitrani
5) JJ Thomas

The women qualify tomorrow but here is Hannah Teter practicing an easy slow front three

Keir Dillon definitely has NOT given up snowboard to be a Fuel TV star

Kevin Pearce - Indy air into 3rd place, no wait that did not happen yet. Stayed tuned to see waht goes down tomorrow