Event Check - The Burton NZ Open 2010
Tom, Snowboard-Review.com’s chief of testing has just spent the last couple of days in Queenstown New Zealand watching the Burton New Zealand Open Halfpipe final. The photos he’s taken for Snowboard Review are pretty damn impressive considering he’s currently got one functional arm and was using a ‘point-and-shoot’ camera.
You may not know but for the last 6 weeks I’ve been in Queenstown, New Zealand, nursing a severally damaged wrist and dreaming about snowboarding like the majority of SB-R’s readers…the only difference being that I’m less than ten miles from a fully functioning ski resort. Anyway, as the Doctor has ordered me not to strap on a snowboard for four months I’ve been struggling for things to take my mind off being injured; so when the opportunity to watch the worlds best snowboarders in action presented itself I was on a bus to Cardrona faster than you could say…well pretty quickly.
I won’t bore you with the details but I took a few photos of the guys that were killing it. You won’t be surprised to hear that Louie Vito and iPod made it onto the podium, Louie landed three different double corks back-to-back in his run and iPod landed the Tomahawk and back-to-back 10’s, but you’ll probably be astounded to hear that second place was awarded to a 14 year-old Japanese rider called Taku Hiraoka. Taku’s style, smoothness and ability to land perfectly at the top of the 22ft transition every time compensated for his lack of weight and doublecorks. In the girls event Kelly Clarke took top honours and was literally inches away from landing a bs1080 in the ‘best trick’ event.
So I guess you’re wondering what boards were the most popular among the riders? Well the top performers were the 2011 Burton Custom X, the Salomon Special, the Yonex Air Carbon Wall and a few riders were rocking the Unity Origin, one of whom was snowboarding legend JJ Thomas.
Posted by Tom Ewbank in Blog & News.
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on August 16, 2010 at 03:54 AM
Nice coverage Tom, hope your wrist heals up fast. :)
on August 16, 2010 at 08:42 AM
Some nice shots you took there! What happened to your wrist? Don’t tell me it happened snowboarding or else I will rub my ‘ugly’ wrist-protection gloves under Rich’s nose! =D
on August 16, 2010 at 01:50 PM
Thanks lads,
Unfortunately I dislocated two bones in my wrist, the lunate and Perilunate and snapped a few tendons and ligaments. I had two operations and my arm is in a cast for four months…..just hope it’s ok for next season in Tahoe. Tobi you’ll be pleased to know it happened snowboarding; I overshot a 45ft kicker throwing a cork 5 and landed wrist-fist on the flat. I can assure you this wrist will be wearing a support for the rest of my snowboarding days!!!!
Glad you liked the photo’s, took loads more but Rich is the Editor/Boss!!!
Tom
on August 16, 2010 at 05:43 PM
Aww man, really sorry to hear that. Best wishes for your recovery, though- let’s all hope you will be up and testing soon again =)
Concerning the photos: maybe you guys could like create a picasa account or whatever and just upload the pictures there and leave a link below the article, where to watch the rest of them!