February 10, 2001

Click here for a Quicktime clip of the women's finals.

Jaime Macleod won the women�s Yahoo! Sports Outdoors Big Air and Style and $2,500 at Mammoth Mountain, California today. The event was a specialty invite addition to the Chevy Truck U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix that was supposed to take place all weekend. However, due to a big storm, the halfpipe qualifying and finals were moved to Thursday, and the boardercross event was going to take place today, but was eventually canceled.

Jaime Macleod launches off the hip. Photo Stouffer

The unique big-air event consisted of an hour-and-a-half jam session where riders could take as many runs as they wanted, but unfortunately they had to wait for the TV cameras to get ready and the jam didn�t progress as fast as many wanted. But most still got in at least five or six jumps, and the riding definitely improved as they got the hip-to-quarterpipe combination wired.

For Macleod, she had to overcome howling wins and blowing snow making the big-air hip to quarterpipe setup a little bit more challenging than it could have been. But she�s definitely on a roll, coming off an X Games Slopestyle win the week before at Mount Snow, Vermont. �I like hips, they�re really fun,� she said. �Backside hits are the best because methods are my most favorite trick.�

However, she skipped the powder morning. �The retarded guy I�m staying with, Carter Olcott, woke me up at 7:00 a.m., was still drunk, and just started yelling, so I just went back to bed and slept in.�

In second place was Catherine Nieves who was going huge off the two jumps and impressing everyone with her big, clean style that included a mute grab and stylish quarterpipe launch.

Catherine Nieves hits the hip. Photo Stouffer

She said the conditions didn�t really hinder her. �When I was in a wind storm it was pretty white, but overall it wasn�t too bad. There were some pauses. The TV made it tough because we had to wait for it. We should have gotten a bunch more runs.� She�s looking forward to the freeriding coming up this week. �There�s going to be tons of snow here in a couple of days, so there�ll be lots to get.�

Marni Yamada rounded out the top three, but apparently didn�t know how well she had done and bailed right before the awards ceremony.

WOMEN 1. Jaime Macleod (Andover, New Hampshire), 23.6
2. Catherine Nieves (New City, New York), 20.0
3. Marni Yamada (Seattle, Wash.), 19.8
4. Caroline Ehrenstrasser (Austria), 19.3
5. Janna Meyen (Truckee, Calif.), 17.7
6. Kim Stacey (Stratton Mt., Vermont), 16.9
7. Amber Stackhouse (Portland, Maine), 13.6
8. Juanita Platz (Bend, Ore.), 10.7
9. Jonnel Janewicz (Riverside, Calif.), 4.4

Where's Marni Yamada? Photo Stouffer

Click here for a Quicktime clip of the women's finals.