Well, like I said before the Winter Dew Tour was overshadowed this year (at least for me) by the Winter Olympics and the X Games. Admittedly, I didn’t watch much of the Tour. I think it’s important to cover it, though, because a lot of athletes I’ve never mentioned before (and some I hadn’t even heard of before) were involved and deserve some recognition!
The reason behind the absence of the better known pros at Dew Tour is the “non-compete” clause in Team USA’s contract. When athletes join the Olympic team, they agree not to compete in any other events before the Olympics. Some may feel that this is a negative thing for Winter Dew Tour and in terms of viewership, they may be right. But for the sake of the sport, maybe Shaun White not showing up was a good thing….
For the last several years we’ve seen the same few guys on the podium for nearly every major competition. This year at Dew Tour, there were some fresh faces as well as some veteran competitors who needed to remind the general public (non-snowboarding fanatics) that they’re still… you know, alive.
The prime example of this is the winner of the Dew Cup, JJ Thomas (a fellow Coloradoan!). A medalist in the 2002 Olympics, this guy has been around a long time. Instead of competing the last few years, however, he has recently invested his energy into making snowboarding videos. Seeing him compete again at Dew Tour was a special treat for long-term followers of the sport.
A little background on the competition and how it works…. This is only the second year of the Winter Dew Tour, and it consisted of 3 stops in Colorado, Utah and Vermont. The events at each stop include men and women’s snowboard/ski superpipe and men and women’s snowboard/ski slopestyle. At each stop on the tour, the athletes gain points in their event depending on how well they do. Whoever has the most points at the end of all 3 stops wins the Dew Cup.
After getting 3rd at the first stop and only 6th at the second, Thomas pulled out the big guns at the final stop at Mount Snow. He wasn’t doing double McTwist 1260’s like Shaun White, but he did put together an overall clean and well put together run which I think is just as pleasing to watch. In his final run, he threw in a 1080, 900 and a McTwist for a final score of 96.75.
Thomas (28) is almost an entirely different generation from the girl who won Women’s Superpipe. Only 20 years old, Kaitlyn Farrington claimed her first Dew Cup this year, earning at 90.75 at the last stop at Mount Snow. She’s someone I expect to see on Kelly Clark and Gretchen Bleiler’s level in a few short years.
Next time, I’ll talk about the skiing portion of the Dew Tour and try to find some sort of legitimate video… everything I’ve come across so far seems like it was shot from a camera phone.
Xtremethings 