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Canadians rule pro pipe
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The biggest winner of the 2011 World Skiing Invitational was Colorado's Bobby Brown, who topped both the slopestyle and big air events to win $8,500 in cash (slopestyle) and a Chevrolet Cruze worth $24,000 (big air).

He also finished on top of the AFP's overall rankings to take bragging rights and a really nice trophy. The WSI also doubled as the Association of Freeski Professionals World Championship this year.

Kaya Turski, who hails from Montreal had a pretty good weekend as well with a win in the slopestyle worth $6,000, plus a second place finish in the big air worth $2,500 in cash and the $2,500 in prizing. And she came out of the weekend with an overall AFP title to her credit.

The AFP circuit is only in its second official year. It was created in order to rank pro events and athletes over the course of the season, rewarding consistency as well as victories in individual events. There are only a few platinum level competitions on the AFP calendar - basically the X Games and the Dew Tour - and this year Whistler was added to that list with over $125,000 in cash and prizes.

There were three events on the calendar this year, including a slopestyle on Friday - on a course that many of the athletes said was the best they've ever skied - a big air jump on Saturday night at the base of Whistler Mountain, and a superpipe contest on Sunday afternoon on Blackcomb.

While AFP status drew a lot more attention to the contests, Whistler also had the distinction of being the first major event since the International Olympic Committee gave the thumbs-up to ski halfpipe for the Olympics in 2014. As well, the sport of slopestyle is still being considered.

Slopestyle

The highest-level terrain park on Blackcomb played host to the slopestyle competition on Friday, with a few modifications. The conditions for the competition were almost perfect, despite some fresh snow dropping on the resort overnight.

The men's podium was all-American, with Bobby Brown in front with a 94.8, followed by Utah's Tom Wallisch with a 93 and Colorado's Gus Kenworthy with a 90.2. (Kenworthy was easily the most talked about skier at the competition because of his skills, style and scary ability to learn new tricks in both pipe and slopestyle almost every week.)

Brown's winning run included a switch rodeo 900 Japan Air off the first jump, a 270 to 450 on the gap box, a misty 630 spin (one and three-quarter spin) off another box, followed by back-to-back cork 1080s spinning in both directions.

The top Canadians in the slopestyle were brothers Vincent and Charles Gagnier, who placed sixth and seventh.

On the women's side, Kaya Turksi topped the field with an 88.6, just 0.2 points ahead of Ashley Battersby of Utah. Anna Segal of Australia was third with an 86.

Turski and Battersby both landed a switch 720 on the course and different 540 variations.

The top Canadians were Quebec's Kim Lamarre in fifth, followed by Pemberton's own Yuki Tsubota in sixth.

Big Air

It's been two years since Whistler last hosted a pro big air event, and it quickly became obvious that a few things have been going on in the last few years if you haven't been following the sport. For one, double tricks like double corked spins are now more or less standard. A 1080 spin is now a stylish choice - most skiers are spinning 1260s, usually taking off forward and landing switch after three-and-a-half spins, although skiers can do the opposite and take off switch. With that many spins and double trick combinations (triples never came out on Saturday night but are the next big thing) it was hard to tell exactly what was going on sometimes.

And then you had the occasional jaw-dropper. L.J. Strenio landed four double corked 1620 spins (four and a half rotations, landing switch), while Gus Kenworthy did a nice double cork 1440. Vincent Gagnier also appeared to have created a new 1260 double trick - on landing it the first time he looked over the other skiers on the side of the course and asked, "what the f*ck was that?" Proving it wasn't a fluke, he went on to land the same trick the second time to huge cheers.

Despite the size of the tricks the judges were looking for clean landings. That's how Strenio and Kenworthy wound up off the podium, as well as Squamish's Sarah Burke - the only female skier to land a 900 - wound up off the podium.

In the end it was Bobby Brown and his signature trick - a switch double misty 1260 - that would take the win. He had trouble landing it the first two times, but nailed it on his third attempt.

"I was just out there to have a good time, everyone was killing it, and I just wanted to go out and land it because I didn't land it the first two times," said Brown. "I'm just stoked that I stayed on my feet."

Brown considered other tricks, but in the end the conditions made up his mind for him.

"The landing was a little slushy so it was hard to land, so I decided to do a trick where I could land forward and it was all good," he said.

The top three women in the contest were the same as the top three in the slopestyle. Ashley Battersby finished on top with an 86.8, followed by Kaya Turski with an 85.0 and Anna Segal with an 83.4.

"I'm really overly ecstatic," said Battersby. "I haven't had a win since early this year at the Dew Tour in Breckenridge, and I am so pumped to be back on top of the podium.

"I came into this really relaxed. I just got back from California and I wasn't really in competition mode."

Some of the athletes had a tough time seeing and spotting the landing, but experience helped a lot.

"Me and Kaya were talking it over, and we knew it was all in your head - you just need to visualize it a lot," said Battersby. "If you have the trick in your head, you just need the speed to do it. You don't even need to see where you're going because you've already seen it a million times in your head."

While the landing was slushy, all of the girls cleared the almost 90-foot gap from the jump to the transition without any problems. "It wasn't scary and the in-run was perfect," said Battersby. "It was pretty close to the best jump I've hit all year."

Superpipe

The sunny weather didn't hold up for Sunday's superpipe, but that didn't stop fans from lining up on both sides of the course to watch the top skiers in the world duke it out in the Olympics' newest event.

There were a lot of skiers in contention for the top spots, but some of the favourites like Simon Dumont were having trouble landing a clean run. One member of the Canadian team, Matt Margetts, hit the deck hard enough to break ribs and puncture a lung - although he didn't know the extent of his injury and took a second run before he decided to head down for medical attention. The event also ended with a toboggan ride for Peter Adam Crook, who cased his landing in the SuperHit competition and dropped over 20 feet onto his body.

In the end, it was a good day for Canada, with Justin Dorey winning the men's event with a final score of 95.2, ahead of Americans Tucker Perkins (86.6) and Nevada's David Wise (85.0). That's almost nine points separating first from second.

Dorey said it was one of the top three runs of his career, despite the fact that he had to shorten his usual five-hit run to four hits to make up for the length of the Blackcomb pipe. His run included a double cork 1260 with a mute grab, a flat spin 360, a switch double corked 1080 and a right 900.

"I've never grabbed my switch on the double before, I actually just landed my first one in a competition in Europe so it was a first for me. So it was a really wicked day," said Dorey, who hails from Vernon.

Dorey has nothing but good things to say about the World Skiing Invitational, which he credits for launching his career.

"It's been good to me, this is where I kick-started my ski career," he said. "I think it was '05 or '06 where I showed up here and came out of nowhere and just landed the best run of my life at the best time I could have landed it. I ended up winning, and that's how I got some sponsors and enough money to be able to travel around and do all the contests, and that's why I am basically where I am now. If I never won WSI that first year I don't think I could have afforded to keep skiing."

Dorey said the level of competition is increasing constantly, and it's a challenge to keep up.

"It's insane," he said. "Every contest there are new tricks, new double flips going down, compared to a couple of years ago. It used to be doable to do both slopestyle and halfpipe, but now people are just focusing on halfpipe or slopestyle because the level of intensity has just gone through the roof. It's really tough to be doing both, although some kids like Gus Kenworthy are unbelievable because they can win in both and pull it off."

Dorey is strongly motivated by the Olympics, acknowledging that it will change a lot for the athletes in the sport.

"We have a plan now," he said referring to the national halfpipe program that will run under the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association banner. "I have a plan. It's my three-year plan.

"I want to keep doing all the pro events, but that's the biggest event that any of us could dream of going to so I'll be hustling and trying to stay on top of it until then. That's the biggest goal in my life right now."

Edmonton's Kelti Hansen took the women's superpipe with an 85.2, followed by Vermont's Devin Logan and Anais Caradeux of France with scores of 83.4 and 81.8 respectively.

"I'm really stoked and a little bit in shock," said the 18-year-old. "I had a super good first run and I learned two new tricks today, pretty much.

"I learned corked 9s and alley-oop 3s the other day. I kind of wanted to change up my run because I was tired of doing the same old run. So I worked with them, some of the coaches helped me out with them, and visualizing a lot helps."

Like Dorey, she also has the Olympics on her mind.

"It's kind of far away but it's definitely on my mind because who wouldn't want to go to the Olympics?" she said. "I'm going to work towards that the next couple of years.

"(Winning at WSI) was the best way to wrap up the season. I'm going home happy, although just landing that run was enough for me."

Complete results are posted online at www.wssf.com under Sports.