by Anke Corbin
(March 27, 1997)

See Also:
UnVailed Schedule (3-27-97)

Welcome to SOL's coverage of Sam Goody's UnVailed snowboard competition. It's a beautiful clear and freezing cold day up here on Vail Mountain where a respectable number of the snowboarding's best have gathered to go big in the UnVailed half-park, and big air competition. The starting roster reads like a who's who in snowboarding.

Tina Basich showed her stuff, going big right from the start and ending up with a strong second place finish Overall and winning the Half Park competition.

Although the event started out a bit slow (riders seemed to be tired after a long season and two nights of major partying) things began heating up towards the end of the first round and into the second round of competition. Tomi Toimenin and Ali Goulet put on the pressure from the start, keeping the edge over the other riders in the Half Park. Ali kept on getting stronger as the day went on winning the Big Air later in the afternoon to take home the first place Overall and a Vail Associates Season Pass for next season.

With a rather subdued crowd, it was the riders who seemed the most enthusiastic about the Jam Session format of Unvailed. "The pressure is off, this is a really fun event for me, lots of great people and beautiful weather,"said Megan Pischke.

Jamie MacLeod pulled it all together with amazing air and clean landings to win first overall, taking first in the Big Air contest and coming in third in the Half Park competition. Tina Basich showed us why she's a super star going big right from the start and setting the pace for the women's competition. Tina went home with a first place win in the Half Park and a fourth place in the Big Air placing second Overall for the day.

Ali Goulet had an awesome day at UnVailed, putting the pressure on all day. Ali Finished first overall, winning the Half Park competition and coming in second in the Big Air.

Local rider Rhonda Doyle had a great day with a second place win in the Half Park, fourth in the Big Air, third place overall win having a great day, with a supportive crowd cheering her on. "This event is so fun for me, the excitement from the other riders and the support from the local crowd really helped me today."

Although there was no prize money for winning the event, riders were paid an appearance fee and some pretty cool prizes such as phones, music and season passes were given away to the winners. Only the top 5 results were published from the event because according to Mark Schelde, the Vice President of Eclipse Television & Sports Marketing who helped put on this event, "Our idea for UnVailed is to have fun, not to discourage any riders from wanting to participate. Lots of them are slightly injured and tired coming from the US Open. This is a festival and celebration, not a highly competitive snowboarding competition."