The last day of competition of the Burton New Zealand Open went down this past weekend at Cardrona Alpine Resort in the Southern Lakes of New Zealand. The rider list was packed with heavy hitters that were ready to slay.
The halfpipe competition was changed to due to the inclement weather leading up to the contest: It ran with one super final, with each rider getting two runs each to please the judges and take care of business.
Cardrona's halfpipe shaper John Melville worked through the night, with a snowstorm that didn't let up until 2 a.m., to tune up the event's 22-foot Olympic-sized creation. The freshly-cut pipe was then salted, slipped and dyed, setting the stage for a stunt ditch battle of epic proportions.
At last year's Global Open here in New Zealand Shaun White won the comp with back-to-back double corks, but this year Louie Vito stepped up the game with a triple threat double cork combo (frontside 1080 double-cork to Cab 1080 double-cork to double crippler). But that only got him third place! But all of this amazing riding from Louie and Japan's Taku was not enough to beat Switzerland's Iouri Podladtchikov -- aka iPod.
Vito arrived in New Zealand only a couple of days before the event and had not landed a competition run since last March's U.S. Open. Because he was granted a free pass to the finals (due to the weather) Louie gambled that he would land his extremely difficult run in at least one of his only two chances in the finals. He almost landed the perfect run his first shot but couldn't quite make his third double cork. His "go big or go home" mantra put plenty of pressure on this Olympian but he plowed through the pressure and landed a beautiful final run that shot him from the bottom of the pack to the podium.
The Burton NZ Open will go down once again in the history books as a preview of the progressive riding and good times we'll all see on display in this coming Northern Hemisphere winter season.