Killington Boarder Battle
Big Air
Jan 23, 1999
By Brooke Geery

| Halfpipe | Big Air |

I'm not really sure how the big air ran because the format changed so many times. First it was two runs during the day, with night finals. Then it was one run during the day that would serve as the finals. Then it was up to the competitors to decide how it would run, and then ESPN didn't like their decision, so they decided how it would run. In the end it was finally determined that everyone would take one run during the day, then top eight would take a second run for an undetermined reason. Then all competitors were invited to take part in a quaterpipe exhibition, with a $1,000 prize, and the finals were held at 7:30 p.m..

There was no girl's division, and although they were welcome to hit the jump along with the men, none of them did. This was somewhat surprising because the jump was pretty small, and competitors said it was so mellow that you could barely even feel yourself in the air. A few new comers signed up for big air only, along with about half of the people who competed in pipe, making the grand total around forty.

Since it cost the same whether you did one discipline, or all three, there were a lot of riders hitting the jump who never do big air competitions. This made for an interesting mix, as some people threw straight airs while others did switch 900's and 720 rodeos. Judges were very hard on landings, so the top eight were basically the riders who landed cleanest. Rahm Klampert, who was a pretty much a sure thing to make the finals, relieved everyone by not being able to clear the jump for his run. It was the foreigners who did well in qualifiers. Canadian Marcus Tarte got first, followed by Fredrik Sarvell, from Sweden, and Sebastian Gagnon, another Canadian.

After everyone had taken their big air runs, organizers opened up the quaterpipe, which had been tempting everyone all day. Anyone who wanted could take runs, and then the judges picked 10 riders to participate in an audience judged competition. This was pretty much the highlight of the day, definitely the most fun event to watch. Many competitors had trouble landing back on the transition, and instead did a fine job removing the Bud Light banner from the top of the quaterpipe. Myles Hallen took it one step further and rather than landing his alley-oop rodeo, he took out the cameraman, three times. Luke Wynen chose to land on the back, but it was doing an accidental double back flip so no one complained.

The official winner was Jeremy Baye with his McTwist. He was pretty stoked on the $1,000 because he was thinking of all the modifications he could make to his car.

The weather actually cooperated for the Big Air finals, which came as a bit of a surprise. There was nothing falling out of the sky and it was warm. A fairly large crowd gathered around the jump to watch by far the most spectators yet. The event got started right on time, riders running in reverse qualifying order. First to drop was Eric Shaw a.k.a. Ben from Mendon, a.k.a Matt Bickford. He pulled off a backside five and landed pretty cleanly. Immediately the standard was set for the rest of the competition. The evening included lots of spins and flips; however, the crowd seemed disappointed by the lack of spectacular wrecks.

After the first run, Luke Wynen was in first, which seemed questionable because his landing was nearly as clean as Marcus Tarte's was, but everyone still had another run. Most people did the same trick in both runs, but it seemed a lot more people weren't landing as well. Luke again tried his 720 rodeo, but tumbled and had to rely on his first run score. David Malancon pulled clean frontside 540 Indys, and Mark Reilly was doing frontside 360 stale to lein double grabs. Greg Wilson was having trouble landing and kept dragging his hand, leaving him with a lower score than in qualifiers. Since Tarte qualified first he was the very last competitor to go. As soon as he popped off the lip, about two feet higher than anyone else did, and pulled off a switch frontside rodeo tailgrab, and landed with his hands in the air, there was no discrepancy over who would win. His run pushed Wynen into second, and Malancon ended up in third.

Luke didn't seem too upset about being knocked out of number one and said, "Hey, I'm a pipe rider and I got second in a big air contest, I'm pretty happy."

Marcus was absolutely ecstatic about taking first, and when asked what he would do with the money, he replied, "I'm going to get it all in cash, put it in my bed and roll around in it."

Results

Mens
1. Marcus Tarte
2. Luke Wynen
3. David Malancon
4. Mark Reilly
5. Sebastian Gagnon
6. Fredrik Sarvell
7. Greg Wilson
8. Matt Bickford

Marcus Tarte, Luke Wynen, and David Malancon. Word