Features

Vans Cup 2008:

Molly Aguirre takes rail jam
Cheryl Maas wins slopestyle

By Roberta Rodger

This year’s Vans Cup was once again held at Northstar-at-Tahoe and, for the first part of the event, the weather and conditions couldn’t have been better. I arrived on Thursday night to stay with Bev Vuilleumier along with Etnies team manager Laura Lynn Murphy, Leanne Pelosi, and Raewyn Reid. When I arrived shortly after 6:30 p.m. the girls were still in their snowboard gear as they had barely gotten off the mountain riding from first chair all the way to last chair in the sun and warmth and perfect park conditions. I was excited to get up there the next morning!

Friday we woke up to clear skies and headed to the resort for the women’s slopestyle prelims. All the top slope competitors were there: Erin Comstock, Spencer O’Brien, Cheryl Maas, and Leanne Pelosi to name a few. The course looked good but there was one problem—the second rail feature was too close to the first and made it hard to set up for the first jump. But the Vans Cup crew really wanted to make it how the riders wanted and accommodate their needs so they took the feature out of the judging criteria. The riders were stoked! After a couple hours of practice, the girls were ready to go. Kjersti Bruass was landing the dopest Frontside 720s, Cheryl Maas linked Backside 540s to Cab 540s and both Spencer O’Brien and Erin Comstock had Switch Backside 180s to Frontside 360s on lock to make it to the finals. The competition was tough, and there were a lot of standout riders that didn’t make it to the finals like Bev Vuilleumier who was the only girl to hit all the jumps in the big line, stomping spins on every jump. Little Bryn Valaika, at only 15 years old, wasn’t afraid to charge huge 360s and Shiftys over the big jumps. Unfortunately, only 10 made it through but everyone had a good day and the girls who didn’t make it through decided to try their luck in the pipe.

That evening was the rail jam and this year they decided to switch it up a bit since there were so many talented rail riders and it would be hard to narrow it down to 10. The top five girls from the year before were automatically pre-qualified for the finals and then five more girls could qualify during the half-hour practice jam. The girls were going for it on the kinked rail, kinked box, flat rail and ledge. In the end it was Cheryl Maas, Desiree Melancon, Raewyn Reid, Iris Lazz, Alexis Waite, and Colleen Quigly who made it through to go up against Leanne Pelosi, Erin Comstock, and Molly Aguirre. Desiree was pretty much killing it on every feature: Frontboards on the down rail, 5-0s, and 50-50s through the kink—all with smooth skate style. Canada’s Raewyn Reid showed that she deserved to make it through with solid Back Lips on the down-bar, 50-50s-to-180-offs and solid 50-50s through the kinks. Molly Aguirre was a definite crowd pleaser as she took some pretty major slams trying to Boardslide through the kink, including a serious toe edge catch that sent her flying into the landing head first. She didn’t let this deter her as she headed back up and killed the kinked ledge with 50-50s-to-Noseslides, and 50-50s-to-gap out. Erin Comstock was smooth on everything she hit, especially her signature Frontboards. Rookie rail competitor Iris Lazz was going for it on every rail and landed some pretty crazy stuff but also took some of the gnarliest slams of the night, winning $1,000 for ‘worst slam’ of the jam. Molly took home the gold with Desiree in second, Cheryl took third after stomping a last-minute Boardslide on the kink rail. Raewyn came in fourth.

Saturday saw a mix of weather with snow in the morning then sun and cloud and high winds the rest of the day, certainly not the best conditions for a contest. The run was pretty icy and the jumps were solid. The girls only got a half-hour practice, which equated to two runs, not enough to really get speed dialed so a lot of girls had problems stomping their runs in the finals. It was the contest veterans that handled the conditions with huge tricks and clean runs. Chanelle Sladics dropped into a combo on the flat down box a stylish Frontside 360 to a Frontside 540 finishing off smooth on the last jump and the wall ride to take third. Olympic pipe bronze medalist Kjersti Bruass was on fire all weekend. If I can say something about her riding, she has the best Frontside spins out there—always huge and with sick style, actually pretty much everything she does has dope style. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s little but she rides very compact in the air and when she lands she’s so low it just makes everything look super clean and tight whether it’s in the pipe or on jumps. Kjersti landed a Frontside 360, a Frontside 720 and an Alley Oop-to-Backside 180 on the bottom hip/wallride to take second place. Cheryl Maas took the lead no question. After messing up her first run, she came back strong in her second with a corked Backside 540, Frontside 360, and by being the only girl to not only spin off the last jump but to nail a 720 off it, sealed the first place win as well as the award for best trick. All in all it was a fun event for all the girls and it was great to see Cheryl stomp her runs and take the gold.