Jamie Anderson competes in the snowboard team challenge at Dew Tour on Feb. 6, 2020 in Copper Mountain, Colo.
It’s tough to have skiing or snowboarding events without snow, but too much of the fresh stuff can complicate things in slopestyle contests.
Such was the case on Sunday at Copper Mountain in Colorado for the Dew Tour women’s slopestyle skiing and snowboarding finals. With 37 inches of snow in the last 72 hours, the men dealing with slow conditions on Saturday and snow falling throughout the day on Sunday, the women got together and decided it was too dangerous to attempt the jumps. The competitions for both disciplines turned into a rails-only format.
Not being able to throw big tricks off the bottom three jumps required a change in strategy for the competitors, but fortunately for them the course was filled with different features and rails from which to choose a line and make the best of the situation.
For snowboarder Jamie Anderson, who’s technically strong and always has a smooth flow between elements, it resulted in her 11th career Dew Tour championship. The two-time Olympic gold medalist fell on her first run but delivered on her second and third attempts. Her score of 90.22 on her second run put her in second place and with a 92.66 on her final run she bumped Japan’s Miyabi Onitsuka off the top spot.
The snow was really coming down when the skiers took to the course to close out the competition.
Maggie Voisin went into the third and final run of the day holding onto the third spot on the podium with a score of 89.33. The two-time Olympian went big on her last run but put her hand down landing a spin move off the last rail. Her first run score held up as third best of the day, however, and Voisin grabbed the last spot on the podium to close out the weekend. Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud won with a score of 94.66 and Norway’s Johanne Killi took silver with a score of 93.33.
Gus Kenworthy, a two-time Olympian and 2014 Olympic silver medalist for Team USA who now competes for Great Britain, also grabbed second place in the Dew Tour’s ski modified superpipe event earlier on Sunday.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
