The biggest, most exciting and prestiguous event in halfpipe snowboarding went down at Vail this weekend, and we didn’t go. I mean, do you know how much a trip to Vail costs? And since Burton stopped inviting us places a long time ago and budgets are tighter than a dogs butthole these days, well, what can you do.
But lucky for you, not going to an event has never stopped me from covering it before. And thanks to the magic of social media I feel like I was there! Now that it’s 2015, we turned to the instagram accounts of the winners for an inside scoop, which is much cheaper than a day pass.
Men’s Halfpipe 1st place: Taku Hiroaka
I honestly have never heard of this kid, but I don’t pay attention to contests, and all Japanese names look pretty much the same to my American eyes. Anyway, he looks young, seems very excited and would obviously like to thank his coaches. Oh and he’s basically been riding pow this season. Bastard.
Men’s Halfpipe 2nd place: Athur Longo
It’s true that the Japanese may someday take over halfpipe snowboarding entirely, but not this year! Arthur Longo made sure of that. There is some joke to be made about bahn mi here.
3rd Place: Ayumi Hirano
Sorry I got distracted from the contest by looking at some of the other photos on Ayumi Hirano’s insta. When he’s not a top professional snowboarder, he hangs with famous people, wears a uniform to school, and rides on private planes. Pretty average 15 year old.
Women
First – Kelly Clark
Kelly Clark is still winning women’s pipe competitions. Something like 70 of them, which at 6 average events a year is like a million years, this could certainly bring up the “are women even really trying to progress arguement,” but honestly, who cares? Instead, let’s give Kelly some props for being a badass and specifying that she was not actually drinking champagne but #applejuice, despite the appearance that there may be alcohol in this photo! (She’s an actual role model, people.)
Second – Chloe Kim
Chloe is really blowing up the pipe scene this year and even qualified first, ahead of Kelly, ended up with second. More importantly, she just broke 100k followers.
Third: Arielle Gold
Arielle is claiming best finals a women’s pipe comp has ever seen, and I’ll take her word for it!
If you just want results, check out Burton’s site.