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Beaulieu leads TWSSF athletes to the driver’s seat

Local athlete wins car after podiums in four of five events
1417riddle
Mike Riddle won both the Superpipe and Superhit last Saturday, photo by Scott Brammer, coastphoto.com

By Andrew Mitchell

Whistler’s Craig Beaulieu did everything right this past week, making the podium in all four events he entered at the Telus Whistler Ski and Snowboard Festival. He also won over the crowds, leading the public voting component of the Pontiac Peak Performer contest that gave away a Pontiac G5 GT to the athlete with the best results and most votes.

It all started at the Old Spice Big Air on April 14, where Beaulieu placed second. He then went on to win the McDonald’s Stompede on Sunday, and the Coca Cola Rail Session on Thursday night to take the lead heading into the second weekend of the festival. Snowboarder Molly Milligan (first in Stompede, second in the Rail Session) and skier Charles Gagnier (second in Big Air, second in Stompede and third in Rail Session) were also in the running.

Gagnier came the closest to Beaulieu, but wouldn’t make it back to the podium in the Superpipe or Playstation Big Air.

Coca Cola Rail Session

There was a slightly different format for this year’s Rail Session, with skiers and riders having a choice of a down rail and a flat box to down box with a gap in the middle. The set-up allowed for a lot of creativity, but was complicated a bit by the fact the fence to the finish corral was fairly high up the transition. The trade-off was that spectators were able to get up close and trade hand slaps with the skiers and riders.

On the ski side, Charles Gagnier set the tone early with a 270 spin onto the down rail, and a 270 off to a switch landing, after spinning in the opposite direction. But it was Sammy Carlson who stole the show, with huge spins, big air and switch landings off of everything. At the end of the hour, when athletes were exhausted from hiking back to the top of the run, Carlson was sprinting back to the top to try out new variations, including a run where he was constantly switching his edges that got the biggest cheer of the night.

For the women, Sarah Burke started the evening strong with 270s on and off the boxes, but couldn’t seem to land anything cleanly in the last half hour. Angela Battersby picked up Burke’s early momentum, and got progressively better as the night went on to take the win.

For the snowboarders, Craig Beaulieu established himself as the guy to beat early on through the sheer variety of tricks on both the rail and boxes and a switch-up nose press that got the crowd excited. No two runs were the same, and he landed virtually everything.

After riding like a man possessed all week, Beaulieu was asked how bad he wanted the win.

“I do want this, but truthfully I just strap on my iPod and just ride, just ride with my friends.” he said. “You always want to win, though, and I’m stoked it happened.”

Beaulieu said he didn’t have a strategy heading into the rail session, and never thought further ahead than his next trick.

“It was only an hour but it felt like days, walking up and sweating. By the end we were at the start bumping each other to get that last trick in,” he said, adding that the difference for him was practice. “It was all the same tricks I’ve competed doing in other contests, and I knew I needed to step it up to win.”

One of his tricks was a tight front flip over the ramp to the down rail, something he did to keep the mood light and release tension.

Beaulieu is a true local success story, living in Whistler for the past five winters and entering local contests with a crew of friends. Soon the results started to pile up for Beaulieu, earning him an invite to four out of five events in the festival this year.

For the women, it was Leanne Pelosi’s contest. The level of riding was high, and Molly Milligan went to extremes to defend her title, but in the end Pelosi had the better landings and slightly bigger gaps onto the rail and boxes.

Superpipe

The 2007 Superpipe was huge with over 180 skiers and snowboarders showing up for the first round of qualifiers, hoping to be one of the 60 athletes to qualify for the finals (20 male skiers and snowboarders, 10 female skiers and snowboarders).

For the snowboarders, the finals were an almost all-Japanese affair with Taka Ishihara, Ryo Aono and Kazuumi Fujita taking the first three spots in the men’s contest, and Yuki Furihata and Soko Yamaoka placing first and second for the women. Poland’s Paulina Ligocka was third.

Members of the national team missed the podium, but made the top-10. For the women, Whistler’s Mercedes Nicoll finished fourth, while her teammates Sarah Conrad, Katie Tsuyuki, Dominique Vallée and Maëlle Ricker were fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth respectively.

Ryo Aono won the men’s SuperHit contest with a huge backside 1260 spin.

On the men’s side, Justin Lamoureux just missed the podium by a tenth of a point, while teammates Crispin Lipscomb, Brad Martin, Brendan Davis and Dan Raymond were sixth, eighth, ninth and 10 th .

For the skiers, Sarah Burke started things off with a run that included a couple of 900 spins that no other rider would be able to top. She also landed a 1080 in the SuperHit contest, landing switch.

Jess Cumming also had solid second and third runs to finish within two points of Burke, while Roz Groenwoud upset Grete Eliassen and Stephanie Sirianni in the last of three runs to take third place.

For the men, Mike Riddle waited until his last of four runs to pull into first place, besting his second place finish of last year. In a field of talented skiers, Riddle stood out with his big spins, long grabs, inverted tricks, and his ability to go big on the opposite wall after landing switch. He also won the athlete-judged SuperHit contest with the nicest 1080 of the day.

Riddle also won the Stompede earlier in the week, showing off similar skills.

Kevin Holland was a close second, launching more than 20 feet over the lip and covering close to 50 feet of pipe, while Xaver Bertoni picked up third.

“I was second last year, so I was kind of gunning for first,” said Riddle. “I tried my hardest run with every turn, and I finally got it on the fourth try. I just tried to get a lot of air on both walls, and get the grabs in every time.”

Playstation Big Air

A crowd estimated at 10,000 skipped out on the Vancouver Canucks game to take in the second big air contest of the festival, which featured a slightly different and more international field than the previous week.

On the skier side the field featured reigning champion Jon Olsson of Sweden, and Sarah Burke, who landed a 900 and 1080 in the qualifier.

The three athletes that qualified for the finals were Jon Olsson, Tanner Rainville, and J.F. Houle, who qualified with a 1260.

On the snowboard side, the three finalists were Matt Belzile, who won the previous Saturday, Dave Fortin and Craig Beaulieu.

The format was the same as the previous week, with athletes doing a 540 spin in the first round, a 720 in the second round, a 900 in the third round, and their best trick in the last round.

While Rainville and Houle gave their best, it was always Olsson’s show. He went a little bigger, held his grabs a little longer, and has a knack for stalling his spins in mid-air, then following through in time to make perfect landings.

With the win, Olsson has now won the last four big air contests he has entered in Whistler.

“I can’t believe it happened again,” he said. “I guess the water here is good for me. I can’t explain it.”

Ollson, who runs his own big air event in Sweden, says he is under more pressure to perform these days since he has pulled back from competing in superpipe events. Big air is all he does.

“I love jumping, I love being in the air,” he said.

When asked how he makes ordinary tricks look so stylish, he shrugged. “Practice makes perfect,” he said. “I take a couple of weeks here and there, but this is what I do for fun, and by the end of summer I’m ready to go again.”

Olsson also gave high marks to the five, seven, nine and beyond format.

“I liked it better than last year because they added the final big trick. It’s good because it’s a lot of jumps and you have to stick every jump. Since everybody is doing the same spin, it also forces you to do different things and make it look good.”

On the snowboard side, it was Belzile all the way. After sticking his first rodeo 540, Belzile stomped the landing on every jump, ignoring the chunky landing area that the other riders were getting caught up in.

Belzile only qualified after finishing in the top-three the previous week, something that wasn’t lost on the Whistler rider.

“The crowd was definitely huge for me, it made a really big difference,” he said. “I thought the level of riding was higher, you really had to push the limits.”

He finished his run with a backside 1080, landed well down the transition. “It’s something I tried a couple of times in the park, and it went pretty well so I decided to try it here as well. (With the soft conditions) you really had to stay on top of your board, and land feet first, really cleanly. If you were off a little bit you’d get your edge caught up in the snow.”

The top skiers and boarders got $4,250 for their efforts, plus new Playstation 3 consoles worth $699.