Day 8: Ladies Half-Pipe Throwdown!

On Thursday I got to go to the sport that is a more recent passion of mine: Snowboarding. I have no ‘when I-was-a-kid-I-dreamed-of-being-a-snowboarder’ type story for this one, mainly because when I was quite young, the sport didn’t exist in the mainstream. One Christmas my parents had gotten us kids one of the early snowboards that resembled more of a mono-ski with a tip in front (no metal edges) than anything like what you see in today’s modern boards. I think it was mainly used as a makeshift sled when all the other better sleds were in use.

My little sister Katriina (Triina) was the first one to reject the amped out ski race

culture that I was all about and give the more laid-back and chill sport a try. Triina is the one who got the passion of the board in me. I was back from college for the holidays and was helping her make an elephant piñata for her high school Spanish class. Triina had made plans to go snowboard that night, but was not done with her project as she had hoped and her friends came to the house trying to persuade her to come out. My mom, who knew the value that the piñata had on Triina’s Spanish grade, insisted that she stay home and finish the pachyderm instead of going out. She was however willing to compromise; she sent me with them as a substitute. Triina’s friends taught me to board that night and I’ve been hooked ever since.

I’m not much of a rider, that is Triina’s domain, and I don’t have the free-ride passion for doing steeps or back-country riding like I do for skiing. My snowboard focus is the Half-pipe. I just love the thought of doing jumps and spins while going down the mountain pipe. If I were a kid today, that is where you could find me on the hill. (FYI, Best kiddie half-pipe to learn on? Crested Butte, CO)

So when it came time for Dina and I to put ticket requests in the lottery rounds, it was my number one pick: Ladies Half-pipe. This also happened to be just about everyone else’s top pick too, as we lost every round of the ticket lottery and didn’t get any in our attempts. This was one of the few big ticket items I was ready to pay the scalper fees to go see.

The Thursday morning that we went out to Cypress

Mountain was a sunny glorious morning with clear skies. All fears of the warm weather that had been plaguing some of the other events were put to rest; the clear skies meant the night had been cold and the pipe was solid. Dina and I had a late night over at the Swiss house, so he was in rough shape and I went ahead of him to the event. I had my now usual pizza and o.j. breakfast and just relaxed as I watched the girls take their practice rounds before the start of the qualification round.

Our seats were worth every penny of the scalper price. We were almost directly center and right next to the reserved seats that were for the athlete’s families (Team Bleiler was right across from us). And the Ladies? They were amazing! This was my first time seeing a half-pipe competition in real life and was amazed how high they got up in the air for all the jumps.

The qualification round was by far the best part of the competition. All the girls did amazing routines that contained a collection of frontsides and backsides and grabs and crazy rotations with numbers going well into 2-3 revolutions. I was so pumped up! I felt just like a little kid and I wanted so bad to get out there and try some myself! The qualification round had the top ladies that I was cheering for: Kelly Clark, Hannah Teeter, Gretchen Bleiler, and Torah Bright all in the top five. Those girls went straight to the Finals while the remaining ones had to fight it out for the remaining 6 spots that

would be decided in the semi-finals. It was literally an entire day dedicated to the half-pipe.

The semi-finals had the Canadian’s hometown girl, Nicole Mercedes

boarding that kept the fans pretty happy. In addition to Team Bleiler, there were quite a few American fans out there to support our ladies as well as Torah Bright’s whole family that came to support here. It was so fun being so close to the families and see all their banners, and flag, and bibs, that they had to support their athlete.

The Finals were the only slightly disappointing part of the competition. It seemed like the excitement of the Olympics got to everyone and there were a lot of falls. I love the fact that so many of the girls were going all out and

going big, but when you fall, it knocks you out of the running for any of the medals. It’s the catch-22 of the sport. Go big and possibly fall or play it safe and go home with a medal since everyone else fell. . . . . . Dina was more upset about the falls than I was, but that is part of the philosophy of snowboarding that I love. Snowboarding is a throwdown. Its not about the medals, its about going out and spitting out the biggest, sickest, most gnarly run possibly and hope it pans out. Sometimes you go big and lose it like Gretchen Bleiler did. And sometimes you hit it perfect like Torah Bright. She brought out all her best tricks and came down a Champion. I love a good throwdown! Congrats to the Aussies! Oy! Oy! Oy!