plzkthxbai

The Alli Dew Tour has decided to expand their heavily televised tour this year from bmx and skate to include both freeskiing and snowboarding as well. The tour is making 3 stops this winter at Breckendridge, Mount Snow, and Northstar at Lake Tahoe. The first stop at Breckenridge was this past week and some CRAZY things went down! I was extremely happy to see the level of competition skiing starting to match that of the movie segments. It’s very common in both skiing and snowboarding to see a disconnect between the tricks you see in the videos and the tricks you see in competitions like the XGames. Skiers and snowboarders are more likely to throw tricks to please the judges (such as your class Switch 1080) instead of tricks that are really progressing our sport. I was stoked to see Bobby Brown stepping it up in slopestyle with his double flips. Equally impressive was Justin Dorey’s Superpipe run where they made switch skiing in the pipe look effortless. Even though he only got 2nd place, I feel like his run was just as good, if not better, than Tanner Hall’s first place run.

Check out the runs below!!

Ski Superpipe: 2nd Place – Justin Dorey

Ski Slopestyle: 1st Place – Bobby Brown

I’m super impressed where skiing has come, but don’t quite feel the same about snowboarding. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some AMAZING snowboarding this year. Movies like “FORUM OR AGAISNT EM” have showed just how hard these guys are pushing the sport. But, why can’t we bring this same level of riding to competition? We’ve got guys like Shaun White winning Slopestyle by hucking 1080 with your occasional grab. I know the sport of snowboarding is way past this, but when will we see it in competitions? Oh and, what’s with that last box hit, Shaun?

Here’s Shaun White’s run: