NZSnowboard.com - The home of New Zealand Snowboarding

20th March 2010

A TTR World Tour 6-Star event, the Burton US Open is the most prestigious open event in snowboarding

Stratton Mountain Resort, Vermont Ohakunes Shelly Gotlieb stomped her final run at the biggest open snowboarding event in the world, the U.S. Burton Open, taking second in the womens slopestyle.

Shelly Gotlieb on podium at snowboarding's most prestigious open event, Burton US Open      Credit: Tom Willmott

Under blue skies and with perfect spring conditions, Gotlieb has realised her goal of a podium at the longest running and most prestigious Open event in snowboarding.

Gotlieb struggled on her first and second runs and was sitting in 14th position; however, saving it all for her very last run of three, she pulled it together and mixed things up with a back-lip to boardslide-to-fakie on the top 2 rail features followed by a cab 540, monster backflip over the 2nd jump a backside 720 over the 3rd and a 50-50 over the cannon.

Gotlieb's podium run at Burton US Open   Credit: BGO Shem Roos

Gotlieb suffered a nasty crash earlier in the day cracking her helmet during training and was not feeling great, but put on a brave face, picked herself up and was able to perform when it counted.

Her score of 89 points out of a possible 100 moved her into 2nd position behind Switzerlands Sina Candrian and ahead of 2009s US Open slopestyle champion, Jamie Anderson (USA).

Gotlieb, who was home washing the champagne out of her hair before heading out to celebrate, said that she was overwhelmed with the emotion of achieving her long time dream.

The field was amazing with all of the top women here today competing.

A podium at the Burton Open is awesome, said Gotlieb. Ive been working hard to land a clean back seven in competition and this time it all came together.

An elated Gotlieb went on to say, You should see this trophy, its huge! Im not sure how Im going to get it all the way back to New Zealand.

I want to say a big thanks to everyone in Ohakune who have supported me as well as to SPARC for the contestable funding theyve provided. Without their generosity none of this would have been possible.
Thanks also to NZSBUs Robett Hollis whose texts and support over the phone helped me to achieve my goal of a podium today.

Balmy weather made Vermont feel more like California but even so Gotlieb said that the course held up really well throughout the competition.

Gotliebs teammate Nick Brown finished a respectable 24th in the mens event landing his first run in semi-finals but sketching his 2nd and not progressing to the finals.

Ben Stewart and Rebecca Sinclair are up tomorrow in halfpipe semi-finals and finals. Their training went well today with Ben attemping cab double-cork 1080s and Rebecca landing some of her best runs of the season.

Gotliebs next stop is the Roxy Chicken Competition in Mammoth, California.








LINK:  
www.nzsbu.com
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