Tag: Australia

Sweden’s Sven Thorgren and USA’s Hailey Langland dominated a star-studded field of finalists to win The 2016 Mile High by Carlton Dry.

With a unique slopestyle format, the top 12 men and top eight women from yesterday’s semi-finals had the best-of-two runs on the jump line and best-of-two runs on the rail line to impress the judges. Belgium’s Seppe Smits won the PS4 for scoring the best overall jump run, and Norwegian young gun, Marcus Cleveland won the best rail run. But it was 21-year-old Sven Thorgren who was the most consistent, with the highest combined scores from jumps and rails to take the A$5000 prizemoney for winning The Mile High by Carlton Dry.

“The Mile High by Carlton Dry was sick today!” said Sven after his win. “Everybody was killing it. I’m really pumped to have a great start to the season. It was a good final, and it gets me really pumped to start the year with a win. It was a fun format with the rails and jumps judged separately. It’s a new format that was good to try here at Perisher.”

Sven’s jump run included a double crippler on the rider-favourite halfpipe feature, followed by a double backside rodeo, cab 900 nosegrab, and finishing with a backside 1080 stalefish on the last jump. His rail run started with a switch-backside tailslide-to-270 off, butter to backside 180 on the downbar, switch-boardslide switch-up to fakie, and cab 450 gap on the flat-down rail. 17-year-old Marcus Kleveland added to his Playstation 4 prize with $3000 for second place overall, while Seppe Smits combined with his winning jump run for third overall.

Over three days in Perisher’s Front Valley, 110 of the world’s best professional slopestyle snowboarders competed against 10 of Australia’s best. “It’s pretty insane how good all the riders are here,” said Sven Thorgren. “Pretty much all the best riders in the world come here to Perisher at this time of year, and it’s great that we get to do this competition.”

In the women’s, Hailey Langland continued her domination from semi-finals, winning two Playstation 4’s for Best Jumps and Rails Line, as well as the $3000 overall winner’s prizemoney. In fact, the semi-final placings were replicated in the finals with UK’s Katie Ormerod and Japan’s Miyabi Onitsuka making up the all-teenage podium.

“I love Perisher!” said the 16-year-old X Games bronze-medallist, Hailey Langland. “I love what they did with the course. It’s been really good to come out and ride it”. The Mile High by Carlton Dry is a World Snowboard Tour (WST) International Level event, and the high number of WSPL (World Snowboarding Points List) points on offer at Perisher will set up the slopestyle snowboarders coming into the Northern Hemisphere winter as they aim to qualify for the 2018 Winter Olympics Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.

The Mile High by Carlton Dry 2016 Final Results

Men:

1. Sven Thorgren (SWE) – $5000
2. Marcus Kleveland (NOR) – $3000
3. Seppe Smits (BEL) – $1500
4. Eric Beauchemin (USA) – $500

Playstation 4 Best Jumps Line: Seppe Smits (BEL)
Playstation 4 Best Rails Line: Marcus Kleveland (NOR)
Women:

1. Hailey Langland (USA) – $5000
2. Katie Ormerod (GBR) -$3000
3. Miyabi Onitsuka (JPN) -$1500
4. Jessika Jenson (USA) – $500

Playstation 4 Best Jumps Line: Hailey Langland (USA)
Playstation 4 Best Rails Line: Hailey Langland (USA)

The Mile High by Carlton Dry is bigger and better for 2016 and returns to Perisher’s Front Valley with the biggest and best line-up of wintersports athletes ever assembled in Australia.

110 international slopestyle snowboarders will be joined by 10 of Australia’s best riders, all drawn to the world-class slopestyle course constructed in front of the Perisher Centre. Master shaper, Charles Beckinsale, and the Perisher Park crew are world-renowned for building inventive and creative features, and the 2016 Mile High slopestyle course promises to provide an epic blank canvas for the best in the world to display their art.

80 men and 40 female professional slopestyle snowboarders will compete over three days to crown The Mile High by Carlton Dry champions. Current WST-ranked world number two, Canadian Darcy Sharp, returns to defend his 2015 Mile High title and will be joined by 30 out of the top 50-ranked men. WST-ranked world number five, Tyler Nicholson, will be doing his best to steal the winner’s points from his Canadian compatriot. Another big gun to keep an eye on is 2010 Winter Olympic silver medallist, four-time-TTR World Tour Champion, and current World Big Air Champion Peetu Piiroinen from Finland.

The local field of Australians will have to do amazingly well to get to the podium this year with such a large international field but that won’t stop them from giving it their best shot. With that said though having riders like Markus Kleveland (NOR) and Billy Morgan (UK), two out of only three men in the world who have ever landed a quadruple-cork, entered in the Mile High, it’s going to be the hardest-ever year to secure a place on the podium.

In the women’s, 25 of the top 50-ranked riders will duke it out, led by world number three, 2013 World Champion and X Games gold medallist, Spencer O’Brien, who also hails from Canada, and World number 4 Karly Shorr who seems to podium at every event she enters. The women’s field is riddled with the top progressive riders coming up in the sport, many who have double corks and double flips in their bag of tricks.

The 2016 Mile High by Carlton Dry sees competitors entered from every snowboarding nation in the world and reflects the importance that this WST International Level competition plays in the long lead-up to the 2018 Winter Olympics. This year there is an increased presence of Asian freestyle competitors, including teams from all over Asia, who will compete against the USA, Canadian, Norwegian, Swedish, Kiwi, Swiss, Austrian, Dutch, German, Finnish, Italian, British, Latvian, Irish, Slovakian and Australian slopestyle teams.

With such a high-quality list of competitors, The Mile High by Carlton Dry has a stronger field than almost any other competition on the tour. For a small budget event in the tiny snowboarding industry of Australia this ‘Perfect Storm’ of nations heading downunder makes it all the more amazing. With no webcast or live TV you will have to check the World Snowboard Tour facebook page for updates.

Updates about conditions, schedules and results can be found at The Mile High Facebook page.

The Mile High by Carlton Dry will make rights-free high-resolution photos after each day of competition, as well as a dropbox folder for every rider to access raw footage for downloading and social distribution.

Links will be at www.themilehigh.com.au and on The Mile High by Carlton Dry facebook page.