No medal for me today unfortunately, but the weather was good and I was happy with my half pipe runs. I’d out a couple of runs in on the half pipe yesterday but hadn’t really done anything spectacular (let’s face it, when you only ride pipe once a year it’s hard to be spectacularly anything except for spectacularly bad!). Due to my superior planning skills I was up the top of the mountain early enough to get about 6 practice runs in which was triple what some of the slackers managed, I was getting near the lip of the super pipe on my first hit but my skills on the backside wall are lacking somewhat and I wasn’t really able to keep my height or speed in the increasingly slushy pipe. I did however manage a clean first run of frontside airs (with grabs) and backside airs (less grabs) and then for my second run I went for another mix of front & backside airs and went for a frontside 360 (today was the first time I’d tried these). Unfortunately I butt-checked it but it gives me something to work towards for next year’s comp.
As I said I didn’t place in the top 3, my gut instinct tells me I placed 5th out of 5 Masters but as I’m happy with how I rode I don’t mind not winning another medal.
Tomorrow’s comp is the slope style, it’s a 9am start at the top of the mountain so no partying for me tonight. Also because of the large number of entrants and the fact it takes 20 minutes to lap the comp park and the run to the lift and back we only get one run, so I have to make it count. I’ve got my run all planned out and if it all comes off OK I’ll be happy. My main aims are to do decent grabs on all three kickers and keep my bum out of the snow (last year I managed the kickers pretty much but not the butt part as I fell on the rails).
On another note it looks like Rebecca Cullum actually won her age group in yesterday’s Big Air comp and placed 4th overall, unfortunately as yet there has been no announcement of this to the masses nor has there been a re-run of the podium presentation so that she (and her sponsors) get a moment of glory. This really disappoints me because it’s one thing to make a mistake by not presenting someone with their prize but quite another not to fix it publically and fast! So at present it’s really only those people with access to the press office or who’ve spoken to Becca that are aware that she actually won. I do hope that Soulsports do fix this before the end of the week.