A blazing sun high above a bluebird sky set the stage for the invitation-only World Superpipe Championships on March 12 in Park City, Utah. Dressed in T-shirts and basking in the 55-degree weather, hundreds of spectators lined the orange-mesh fence alongside Park City Mountain Resort’s Olympic Eagle Superpipe to get a courtside view of the world’s best skiers and snowboarders vying for a piece of the $90,000 prize purse.
The third-annual event opened with the women’s snowboarding competition, a field of 13 hailing from the U.S., Australia, Japan, Canada, and Switzerland. “Every single year, the ante is just upped and upped,” noted contest veteran Tricia Byrnes (Greenwich, CT). This year was no exception, with the girls throwing down insane combos and boosting more than 10 feet above the lip.
From the initial run, the battle for first place clearly was between the U.S. Snowboard Team’s Hannah Teter and 2002 event winner and halfpipe specialist Gretchen Bleiler. While Bleiler showcased her smooth style, flowing seamlessly from one side of the pipe to the other, Teter exhibited a more aggressive attack and bigger air.
All of Teter’s runs were executed with tremendous power. “The third run was the funnest. I had never done it before, and it was perfect to have [weather] conditions like this,” she said, replaying her winning combo. Teter dropped in and opened with a high-flying 540 to a big f/s air, gaining enough speed to unleash a flawless corked 9 to a variation of the inverted McTwist, maintaining the momentum to nail another 360.
