Features

Bev Vuilleumier brings home $25,000 for overall top spot in the second annual If Ullr Was A Girl contest

Story by Roberta Rodger
Photos by Sara Tollstrup and Roberta Rodger

It’s great to see an event that’s created just for female snow athletes back again for another season. “What if Ullr was a Girl” once again made a huge presence and had an impact at this year’s Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival. The competition consisted of three on-snow competitions and then was capped off with Ullr Unleashed: An Evening Of Mountain Culture (which basically was a talent show).

The first competition of the event was the Big Mountain held on Blackcomb’s Chainsaw ridge. Sounds pretty gnarly? It is, especially if it hasn’t snowed in awhile and temperatures have risen dramatically causing warm snow avalanches and cornices to break free. What made it even gnarlier was the drop in temperature and the blowing winds the day of the contest. None of the girls were that stoked on the conditions; super boiler plate run, freezing winds and avalanche debris all had to be contended with, but they all made do and charged it for their one judged run. After only having one run, some girls even wanted to go back and do another!

Next day was the Pipe, and the weather hadn’t improved much with cold weather and fog getting in the way of some of the competitors’ runs. There were some strong pipe riders in attendance like Canadian National and Olympic team rider Dom Vallee and young up-and-coming Snowmass rider Jordie Karlinski. Both of these riders demonstrated a high level of technical prowess in their runs as well as consistency, amplitude and style. Don’t count out slopestyle chargers Bev Vuilleumier and Spencer O’Brien though. Both put down smooth and stylish runs, and Spencer even threw down a nice 540.

All the elements came together for the girls for the final on-hill competition, Slopestyle, held in Blackcomb’s highest-level terrain park. The weather was perfect, partly sunny and warm, but not too warm to slow the girls down as they hit up the course consisting of three jumps in a row or three jibs in a row. You could choose to hit only jumps, only rails, or link it up.

In the riders’ meeting, the judges stated that style, creativity, real grabs (not just tap grabs) and solid landings were the key components to their judging criteria. All the girls were killing it, Robin Van Gyn was going huge on the second jump mixing up her runs, Bev was trying frontside 720’s, and even gave herself a concussion on the last jump and even am riders Michelle Zeller (aka ROXY Honey) and Caley Vanular were giving the pros a run for their money with solid 360’s.

I’d have to say that Spencer O’Brien threw down two of the best runs I saw all day. First off, her switch backside 180 mute, to backside 360 melon, to frontside 540 indy was fully stomped with the style we’ve all come to know and appreciate from her. Then she ended off her last run with a switch backside 180 mute to tail, to frontside on the long flat-down box and a nice backside 540 melon! Spencer was definitely on fire and riding strong and smooth.

The final night was “Ullr Unleashed: An Evening of Mountain Culture”. I was excited for this night since I was judging and I’d missed the talent portion of the event last year. As a judge I got the best seat in the house with a perfect view of the ladies and all their unique talents. I kept having to remind myself I was a judge and I couldn’t show so much enthusiasm as to lead anyone to any kind of conclusion as how the voting was going.

When the second girl Michelle Zeller got on the stage with her one-piece sequence outfit and props, I was excited to see what was going to happen. Michelle had mixed her own music and gave an awesome dance performance complete with ski pole props, ski patrol logo tee, and even her own grill that she threw on for the gangster portion of her dance. The crowd was going wild! There were a lot of standout performances from the night, Spencer O’Brien solving the Rubik’s cube in under five minutes was actually pretty gripping, she messed up and it was getting pretty stressful I didn’t think she was going to be able to pull it off but when she did in four minutes and 37 seconds the whole crowd jumped to their feet in cheers!

Robin Van Gyn was as entertaining and exuberant as usual with her presentation. A few girls had made paintings that related to mountain culture, but Robin filmed a time lapse of herself completing her painting all in one sitting, and played it for us with a sweet soundtrack. It was pretty funny seeing her paint away in fast-forward, stopping occasionally to blow dry the canvas for her next layer. She made a bright abstract painting that she wrote the names of everyone that had helped her get to where she was in snowboarding into.

Some girls were seriously talented in music like Jenny Strong who played an awesome violin, and Dom Valee, who played some classical music on her piano with a slide show of all her favourite travel photos from past years. Dom didn’t disappoint the fans that cheered her dance routine on last year as she jumped up from the piano and went into her Night at the Roxbury dance number. Bev once again impressed us all with her smooth hip hop flow to cap off the night. All-in-all, these girls showed they had talents above their On-hill performances!