There is a little something called home-field advantage. Then there is something called kicking some serious ass in front of your mom. That is what Aspen native,
Gretchen Bleiler, did Friday at Winter X Games VII in front of 10,700 boisterous Aspen fans. GB, 2002's Triple Crown champ, ran away with the gold medal, fending off the best in the business, in a comp that will go down in Superpipe history.
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| Gretchen with a courtesy crippler in round two of the finals. |
But Gretchen wasn't on point from the get go. She started the day on her ass after scrubbing the landing on an inverted frontside 7 in qualifiers and bagging the run. "It was awesome to hear the crowd," she says. "But the support can be both good and bad. There is a lot of pressure. So I had to really concentrate on the basics in my second run." Bleiler clearly worked more than the basics the next time down the pipe. Right out of the gate, she stomped a frontside inverted 5, hanging on strong after catching a little lip, moving herself from last place to first and locking in a clutch finals slot.
Last year's dominating gold medallist, 19-year old
Kelly Clark, barely squeaked into the finals herself. In the last run of the qualifiers, she broke a 10th place tie with Winter X Games VI's silver medallist,
Stine Brun Kjeldaas, who touched down on an upside down 540 ho ho. "I was just thankful I made it to the finals," Clark says.
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| Kelly Clark blasts in to second with this huge frontside air off the first wall. |
Minutes later, in the first run of the big show, Clark showed just how grateful she was by giving the crowd a long look at the bottom of her board. Kelly dropped in completely amped up. "There is no sense in being conservative in the finals," she says. Kelly came out with enormous air at the top, a huge frontside 540, a corked backside 540 with a tail grab, and then she stomped a frontside 720, setting the bar high with a score of 94.00.
"It meant a lot to me that I hit that run," Clark says. "I've been having some trouble lately, and I needed bring my confidence back up."
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| Gretchen Bleiler and her winning smile. |
"I was so stoked to see Kelly come out with a sick run like that," close friend and riding partner Gretchen Bleiler says. But Gretchen had no problem topping her girl in front of friends and family several runs later, bumping her to silver. The 21-year-old came out crazy, stomping a huge crippler (front side inverted 540) at the top of the pipe, then following up with smooth back to back backside 540's and a front side 540. She never looked back after netting a 95.33 from the judges tower.
With an incredible display of inverts, air, and style never before seen at Winter X, Friday's competition seemed ready to go down in history as the best Women's Superpipe comp ever. But not before 16-year-old Hannah Teter dropped in to make her statement.
The precocious sister of two other Winter X halfpipe specialists (Elijah and Abe) showed some of the biggest air and style in the comp, but she really put it down on her final run of the day, stomping a perfect 900 to bump Snowboarder X gold medallist Lindsay Jacobellis out of the Superpipe bronze slot with a 91.67. Teter joined her riding partners Clark and Bleiler on the podium, marking the arrival of a new breed of Superpipe women.
"The level is huge now," Bleiler says. "It's all inverts, amp, and spins now. I'm working on nailing that crippler 7 and a 900 next time around."
All of her Aspen fans are hoping they'll be there to bear witness.
Related Photos:
Snowboard SuperPipe Women's Gallery
