Winter Dew Debut Gets it Right

With Scotty Lago holding the lead for most of the contest and Shaun White still to drop in, Danny Davis (photo at right via allisports.com) stomped one of the best competition runs I've ever seen on his way to winning the Snowboard Superpipe bragging rights at the first-ever Winter Dew Tour. Davis dropped in fast, popping a little 180 on the drop-in then hitting a massive switch b/s 720 on his first hit. Next up: Backside 9, frontside 1080, Cab 1080, frontside 9.    

I've been snowboarding for 20+ years and following the pro competition circuit pretty closely for most of that time, but it still blows me away every time to see, in person, how far and how fast everything progresses from year to year and contest to contest. 

This much is, perhaps, predictable: Bring in the best crew to shape the superpipe, invite all the best riders to Breckenridge -- one of the best party town resorts anywhere -- and toss enough money and big-time TV exposure in the pot to make sure they all show, then let them throw down. The result? You get riders like Danny Davis and Gretchen Bleiler (to say nothing of Shaun White and Scotty Lago, Kelly Clark and Elena Hight, and all the rest of the competitors) delivering a State of the Union on snowboarding superpipe, circa Winter Solstice 2008. The Winter Dew Tour has arrived, and it was a banger of an opener.

After a couple years of covering the summer Dew Tour events professionally, I made the trek up to Breck this weekend mostly as a spectator, catching a few runs myself before checking out the Superpipe Men's and Women's Finals on the last day of competition.

In both events progression ruled the day: The top ladies are all throwing frontside 900s these days, Gretchen Bleiler's signature "crippler" helped seal the deal to edge out Kelly Clark.

For folks following along with the Dew Tour's season-long points system: 2nd place finishes for the likes of Shaun White and Kelly Clark (Olympic gold medalists, both) mean this thing is about to get interesting as the competition heads to the next two stops in January and February. White also won the Slopestyle contest this weekend, and already has a Dew Cup in his collection from the 2007 Skate Vert contest on the summer Dew Tour. He has a knack for coming from behind under pressure, and everybody in action sports knows to never count him out.     

For more on the Superpipe Finals, Adryan Roane Ritter has a nice account of the women's finals here and the men's Finals here over on the official Winter Dew Tour / Alliance of Action Sports website.

-- Colin Bane