Media Room

2008 BURTON AUSTRALIAN OPEN COMES TO A CLOSE

6 September 2008

After a week of mixed weather, the sun broke through, illuminating the 400m long slopestyle course that featured a downrail, battleship rail and three massive kickers.

With a field comprised of an Olympic gold medalist, the men’s and women’s New Zealand Open slopestyle winners, two TTR World Champions, six Winter X-Games medalists and some of Australia’s best, the day promised some serious riding and it didn’t disappoint. While the standard was high in both the men’s and the women’s fields, both winners were stand outs with Torstein Horgmo nearly ten points clear of Danny Davis (USA) and Jamie Anderson an impressive 15 points clear of her nearest rival, Raewyn Reid (CAN).

Horgmo’s $7,500 AUD winning run featured a fakie backside tail 270 on the downrail, into a switch 50/50 Cab 180 on the battleship, followed by a backside 720 melon, into a frontside 900 indy, finishing with a ridiculously big switch backside 1260 melon. “I feel really good right now,” said Torstein. “It’s crazy, I thought this course was so much fun, better than last year; you could do bigger tricks and have way more flow through the park. Everybody killed it today so I feel really fortunate to end up on top.”

Danny Davis landed 2nd place with a run that included back-to-back 900’s, riding away with $3,500 AUD. Eric Willet (USA) took home $1,500 AUD for his 3rd place finish, his winning run featured a switch backside 900 mute and frontside 1080 tailgrab.

Women’s slopestyle champion Jamie Anderson continued to be unstoppable in her pursuit for perfection with another podium win. She started her winning run with a tailpress on the downrail, followed by a noseslide-to-fakie on the battleship, sticking a switch backside 360 stalefish on the first kicker, into a Cab 540 mute on the second, finishing with an frontside 540 melon. “I am so stoked to win, it was a really fun day and we had great weather,” said Anderson. “The other girls were sweet; everyone was riding so well, it was an awesome day.”

Raewyn Reid had an impressive showing for the ladies with a backside lipslide on the downrail and a 50/50 frontside boardslide on the battleship, taking home 2nd place and $3,500 AUD. Kara Rennie (CAN) won $1,500 AUD and the third place title by styling it out on the rails with a backside lipslide and 50/50 to boardslide.

With the Burton Australian Open over, it’s on to the Canadian Open, taking place at CODA’s Canada Olympic Park in Calgary from December 1-7, 2008. The Canadian Open is the third stop on the 2008-2009 Burton Global Open Series. Jamie Anderson and Luke Mitrani are currently in the lead for the $100,000 Burton Global Open Series Championship title. The BGOS boasts the most lucrative cumulative prize purse in snowboarding – over $900,000 – with equal prize money to men and women

After today’s Swatch TTR 5Star slopestyle event, Jamie Anderson continues to defend her 2007/08 TTR World Tour Champion title, while Chas Guldemond maintains his tour lead. For more information, visit www.ttrworldtour.com.

RESULTS

1 Torstein Horgmo         NOR                 DC                    90.33               $7,500

2 Danny Davis                 USA                 BURTON           81.50              $3,000

3 Eric Willett                     USA                 VANS               79.50                 $1,500

4 Chas Guldemon          NOR                 DC                   79.00                $700

5 Kevin Pearce                USA                 BURTON           78.00               $350

6 Mason Aguirre             USA                 BURTON           77.67                $175

 
1 Jamie Anderson         USA                 BILLABONG       96.17               $7,500

2 Raewyn Reid             CAN                 DC                     80.50                   $3,500

3 Kara Rennie              CAN                 NIKITA                63.83                  $1,500

For those that missed the live webcasts on Go211.com, highlights of the winning runs and the completewebcasts will be available for on-demand viewing. In addition, the full webcasts will be replayed in their entirety on www.Go211.com at the following times:

For Australian and Japanese Time Zones

Wednesday, September 10

Halfpipe semifinals and finals webcast REPLAY             10:00amAU/9:00amJPN

Thursday, September 11

Slopestyle semifinals and finals webcast REPLAY          10:00amAU/9:00amJPN

Burton would like to thank Go211.com, Corona, APN, Perisher Blue and Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour for their support of the Australian Open.

For further media information, contact:

Mia Troy-Vowell                                                 Katrina McGarry                                   

T: +61 414 752 562                                           T: +61 424 144 470

E: miat@burton.com                                         E: katrinam@burton.com.au