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Yater-Wallace, Drew clean up at halfpipe

Americans shine in event's return to WSI

A pair of Americans took the top prize in the halfpipe's return to the World Skiing Invitational on Sunday afternoon (April 12).

Torin Yater-Wallace of Colorado and Anna Drew of Massachusetts each topped 90 points en route to winning the event's first halfpipe competition since 2012.

Yater-Wallace, a perennial X Games medallist at just 19, said the pipe conditions were the best they've been all week and overcame a sore ankle that kept him out of this weekend's big air and slopestyle showdowns.

Yater-Wallace topped 90 points in both his runs in his first time in the pipe since February.

"It was the snow making it slow, so if it's not too snowy, that's pretty much the best," the 2014 Winter Olympian said. "There was a couple snowy times today, but for the most part, we all made due and made the best of what we had and things ended up going alright."

Noting most participants showed off some sort of double, Yater-Wallace said the double flatspin he selected wasn't en vogue for other competitors, so that choice helped him stand out.

"You just go back up and my mindset is just to clean everything up, make it as perfect as possible, and of course, go as big as I can," he said. "That just ups your score. I've seen the whole crowd, I know what to base it off of."

Drew, meanwhile, suffered a broken collarbone earlier this year, but she didn't miss a competition. However, the 21-year-old wonders if some time off in retrospect would have been ideal, as she's only felt right within the last couple of weeks. In any event, she was in fine form on Sunday, impressing judges with an alley oop flatspin 540 transitioning to the 900 to help her jump from second to first after her initial run.

"Just putting a run down with grabs to my feet (helped)," she said. "I was a little iffy on a few tricks my first run, so just cleaning those up and I knew that I could do it."

Fellow American Lyman Currier was second and New Zealander Byron Wells was third. Simon d'Artois was the top local in fifth, while Mike Riddle was eighth, Riley Culver was 24th and Taylor Wilson was 29th.

In the women's event, Edmonton's Keltie Hansen was second and American Devin Logan was third.

Organizers also held a superhit competition on Sunday. The men's winner was Alex Ferreira and the women's winner was Hansen.