Davos, Switzerland – The 6Star O’Neill Evolution wrapped up in Davos on Saturday with Canada’s Sebastien Toutant and American snowboarder Jamie Anderson winning the slopestyle titles Saturday after Switzerland’s Christian Haller and American rider Kelly Clark doing the same in the halfpipe a day earlier.nEach of the winners were awarded a piece of the $125,000 USD prize purse and 1,000 TTR World Ranking points. With the weekend complete, Belgium’s Seppe Smits took over the Swatch TTR World Tour lead for the men and Silvia Mittermueller of Germany moved into the tour lead for the women. Although neither of these riders were able to snag a podium spot in Davos, both have registered more results than others on tour, which boosts their overall score in the World Rankings.
The halfpipe finals went down under bluebird skies on Friday and Davos local, Christian Haller, took the first place spot, edging out fellow countryman and heavy-hitter Iouri Podladtchikov, who had to settle for second place. Haller took home the 6Star halfpipe title with a run consisting of a backside 540, frontside 1080, Cab 1080 and a frontside 900. Another Davos local, 16-year old Jan Scherrer, came out of nowhere and made the crowds go wild with a run that earned him third place.
Haller earned enough Swatch TTR World Ranking points to move into the World No. 4 position, just behind Podladtchikov who now sits in World No. 3.
On the women’s side, West Dover, Vt.’s Kelly Clark dominated in the halfpipe, definitely setting the bar for amplitude and throwing down a stylish frontside indy, backside 540, frontside 720 and a Cab 720 to take first place. This was Clark’s first TTR result for the season that, together with her end-of- season bonus points, shot her straight into TTR World No. 10. Slovenian rider Cilka Sadar took second place, moving her into World No. 5 and Kjersti Ostgaard Buaas of Norway placed third and remains in World No. 4.
The slopestyle course was built next to the halfpipe at the bottom of Jakobshorn mountain and featured two challenging features for riders to hit. The first was a kicker with two super poppy take-offs measuring 40 feet and 55 feet, and the second was a choice of three rails including an up-flat-down box, a pole jam and a flat-down rail. Sebastien Toutant was on fire on the slopestyle course today and won the finals with a Cab double cork 1260 to a backside boardslide to underflip out on his final run.
“Second 6Star win of the season is so amazing today. To ride with my good friends and every run we were stepping it up,” said Toutant. “On my last run I was outside of the podium and stomped my best Cab 12 ever. I plan to go to BEO (the Burton European Open) next and give it my best on the TTR Tour.”
Fellow Canadian, Mark McMorris was able to put down a Cab double cork 1260 to frontside tailslide to 450 out after a hard slam on his first run to take second place. And American rider Eric Willet, who has been making a name for himself over the past two seasons on the contest scene took third place with a switch backside double cork 1260 to backside boardslide to 450 out.
On the women’s side, American rider Jamie Anderson rose above the pack to take the women’s slopestyle title with a backside 540 mute to a switch frontside boardslide-to-backside boardslide. Anderson now sits in the World No. 3 position.
“Today the event was really fun. The kicker was perfect and the weather was great. The progression for women’s riding was really high, which was awesome,” Anderson said. “After this I’m going to head to the 6Star Burton European Open and then I want to go to all the big TTR events.”
Czech snowboarder Sarka Pancochova was riding well to take second place and reigning TTR Champion, Enni Rukajarvi of Finland, was able to grab third place.
Riders will now make the short trip over to Laax, Switzerland for the 6Star Burton European Open. With two more 6Star results available at the Burton European Open, it will be a crucial event for riders looking to improve their ranking positions especially those making a run for the TTR World Tour Champion.