On Saturday I woke early to head up to Fortress to check out The Big Air comp. It was goin off! First after the registration the jumpers got to take a two hour practice on the jump built right beside the aerials kickers. It was just as big as the freestyle jumps but more of a floater than a kicker. After take off you had to clear the 15 foot flats before you hit the transition into the massive landing area. After the warm ups we took a short intermission to chop the landing to prevent being injured in case of a crash. Then the comp started to heat up. The format was 2 jumps with the highest average score winning. There were some sick tricks being pulled, 360 Screamin Seamins, Switch 5's, 720's and 360's with almost every different kind of grab imaginable. I do have a couple complaints though. First of all the Comp was being run by Alberta Freestyle (under FIS duristiction) so only Alberta Freestyle members were allowed to compete. That put me out of it because although I ski with those guys all the time, I'm not actually in Alberta Freestyle. That pissed me off big time! So I had to resort to commentating with Marc who is still out with a Broken leg. The other big peave was that there were no inverts allowed since it was in the Canada Freestyle (FIS) training area and they are to worried about getting sued. So eventhough many of the competitors are able to throw Mistys and a multitude of flips they weren't allowed. I thought the Judging was kinda wack too, the judges (from FIS) seemed to give more points for Old school tricks, rather than New school innovation. Take a look at the results for yourselves. And remember all these jumps were stomped. Andrew got especially ripped off, his tricks were huge and super smooth. In most of the competitor's opinions he should have won. After the comp was over the guys got to huck some new stuff off the jump before they plowed it over. Andrew went and tried a 1080 and came up 1260! No, he didn't stick it because he was on his mogul skis but it was still wicked. There were also some 900's and a ton of other wicked tricks. Below are the top five Big Air results and the podium results from the mogul comp the next day.
#1 Teddy Cosco: 360 mute, 360 Screamin Seamin
#2 Rob Lacey: 360 X, 360 Mute
#3 Andrew Wattleworth: 720 X, 360 Tail Grab
#4 Mike Andrews: 360, Mute to Japan
#5 Jarad McMurry: Quad Twister, Screamin Seamin
#6 Kris Fulgrum: Daffy, Switch 540
#1 Billy Camp
Moguls
#2 Andrew Wattleworth
#3 Dan Mulder