Day 3 of the Canadian Open

It was another balmy day in Calgary today on the third day of the Burton Canadian Open. Following yesterday’s postponement of the competition due to high winds, the second session of men’s slopestyle pre-qualifications were first on the agenda. Temps reached a record high and so did the riders who were going huge off the kickers in the park. An impressive field of 50 riders was cut down to 15, and then the next 10 highest scores from both session one and session two move on to tomorrow’s slopestyle qualification round.
The judges were impressed with the creativity they were seeing on course, like that of Matt Munn who pulled a Michael Jackson to knee slide on the down box, stomping it and proceeding to unbuckle his back foot and bust out a fast plant on the mushroom cap.

But it was Warren Williams who landed the top spot in men’s session two of slope pre-quals with a run that started off with a 270 board slide into a 270 front board 270 out, followed by a frontside 180 switch 50/50 180 out on the street rail, followed by a switch backside 900 on the first kicker followed by a huge frontside 1080, then pulled a 50/50 on the dance floor to 50/50 on the box, and ended with a frontside 360 over the mushroom.

1 Warren Williams CAN Smith
2 Drew Brighton USA DC
3 Craig Beaulieu CAN Clyde
4 Sage Kotsenburg USA Quiksilver
5 Kael Hill CAN DC Shoe Co
6 Dave Schmidt CAN The Source
7 Ryan Anderson USA Burton
8 Jesmond Dubeau CAN Billabong
9 John Murphy USA Analog
10 Robby Balharry CAN Westbeach
11 Matt Munn CAN Electric Visual
12 Mike Osachuk CAN Northwave
13 Colin Clarke USA Bonfire
14 Chris Willett USA Smith
15 Francis Bourgeois CAN Rossignol

Also advancing on to the men’s slopestyle qualifications are Robert Blank, Christopher Waker, Charles White, Josh Sherman, Jonathan Cheever, Pierce Mimura, Kiichiro Kazumi, Mitch Crowshaw, Tanner Davidson and Pierre Houde.

Then it was the ladies turn to drop into the pipe for women’s halfpipe qualifications this afternoon. A field of over 20 riders was cut in half, those lucky remaining ladies advancing on to Saturday’s semi-finals where they will battle it out for a piece of the $50,000 prize purse. The girls were getting good amplitude and putting together solid runs, and Canada’s own Palmer Taylor landed the first qualifying spot with a run that started off with a frontside 540 mute, into a stylish method, followed by a frontside stalefish, then a backside tailgrab, into a frontside 720.

Result
Halfpipe Qualifications Women
1 Palmer Taylor CAN Burton
2 Kimberly Cameron CAN Frontside Board
3 Katie Tsuyuki CAN Sony
4 Jordie Karlinski USA Nikita
5 Julianne Brackett USA Betty Rides
6 Calynn Irwin CAN K2
7 Spencer O`Brien CAN Burton
8 Lauren Shanahan CAN ---
9 Kara Rennie CAN Nikita
10 Kubik Susanna CAN Skaters Boardshop

The action continues tomorrow at COP with men’s and women’s slopestyle qualifications. If you can’t make it to Canada, watch the semi-finals and finals live on Go211.com, where webcasts and highlights of the competitions will also be available for on-demand viewing once the event is over.