Crankworx Les Deux Alpes IXS Slopestyle Finals
The fifteen qualifiers had fourteen individual airs of the course to impress the world with their good looking acrobatics. The standard for pro slopestyle continues to soar, leaving the top dogs with absolutely no leeway to play things safe if they intend to taste the bubbly. The contest ended with Brandon Semenuk walking away to the burger shack 8500euros up, with the crowd having witnessed some of the sickest and technically perfect riding you could ever hope to see.
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 Cometh the hour, cometh the man... on the second run at least, stomping this opposite double tailwhip. Semenuk rounded out a phenomenal nine days at Crankworx Les Deux Alpes. |
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| Number one stretching up in the SRAM pit before practice. The belt buckle has to go to stretch properly... dialed. Whatever helps you win. |
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| Messere avoids a high pollen count during practice. This afternoon riders switched from straight-airing to more exotic attempts...all except Brandon Semenuk. |
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| Semenuk practiced most of the day showing few tricks and keeping things very mellow. Out of nowhere during his first final run he was laying out tricks that no one had even seen practiced here in Les Alps. |
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| 5 seconds earlier: "Hey get this!" exclaims Brett as he rolls in off the drop. Look through back flip. Hard to tell what's going on here as it looks like he is doing a front. Rheeder threw down an amazing first run, although on his second crashed the hardest anyone has ever seen. He walked away, but is currently going to Grenoble to get a CT scan on his back and head. We all wish you the best Brett, heal up soon! |
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| Martin Soderstrom spins off the whale tail high over the the same mountain that is holding the Megavalanche this weekend. |
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| More jerseys than most, it's TLD man, Zink, in action. |
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| Messere loving the dumped 3s. |
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| Soderstrom works her round nice and easy. |
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| Antoine Bizet one of the few to flip the road gap. The jump is a bit corked and is a bit hard to trick so few riders pulled big moves off it. At one time Bizet's run looked like it could take the win especially when he stomped the double backflip again. |
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| Leo Delfour Barsacq demonstrated some serious ability but couldn't land a full run. |
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| Training traffic on the whale tail. |
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| Cam Zink flip whip during his first run. Zink crashed out during his second due to a lot of high wind. Many riders only had 1 out of 2 solid runs. |
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| Pilgrim out marauding into second on the fluro machine.His final run was insane today. |
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| Brandon putting on his mean mugging face. He was all smiles at the bottom, and you could see he couldn't be happier on his big win . |
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| Brett Rheeder three downside whip over the spine. |
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| One footed table from super-steeze Montgomery, over the gnarly road gap. |
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| T-Mac double helicopter. |
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| Cam Zink was having a bit of trouble today getting his lines dialed in. Deep in thought. His first run proved he had everything together, and without a doubt had a top five run on his way if he hadn't crashed out. |
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| Zink flip whip on the upper part of the course |
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| Black media crew and Wolis photo. All the right media in the right place.. |
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| Soderstrom on track - Photo: Karl Burkat |
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| Brett Rheeder all style, knees together. |
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| There were very few crashes on the whale tale, after x-games it barely looks like a step down to these guys. Leo Delfour Barsacq backs it in. |
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| McCaul had a beautiful clean run. It's just hard to stop great riding looking understated with competition like we saw today. |
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| Mike Montgomery sterilizing. He pulled some bad ass moves but couldn't keep it clean today. |
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| Antoine Bizet flipping big off the whale tale into 6th. Photo: Karl Burkat |
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| Classic toboggon with 5th place, Thomas Genon |
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| Granieri was getting all the love from the French spectators today...plus a little extra for having seriously great ride into 4th. |
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| Martin Soderstrom laying down a triple tail whip over the last jump for third place. Martin had an amazing run and hope to see more of his big moves coming up at Crankworx Whistler |
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| The masses witness the triple. |
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| Pilgrim dialed in such an awesome run for second, even with a backflip one-foot x-up off the whale tale. |
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| Proud day for Canadians and SRAM alike. The DH racers watch on while they enjoy the view from the top of the SRAM truck. Photo: Karl Burkat |
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| Brandon stoked on his banger run and big win after clearly a long season of training in the yard. |
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| Flying the Candian coulours high here in France. |
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| Brandon finishing up his run in massive style with a huge corked 720 on the final jump. His run could not have gone any better after crashing in the first round. A year later from his ill luck at Crankworx Whistler, Brandon shows that he is still deadly and will be coming into Crankworx Whistler with the gas on. |
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The majority of riders were putting in really good runs with a lot of different styles. Lots of huge tricks being thrown during their run. No victory laps. Huge ups to Yannick for the sick course; had a little bit of everything, but NO QUARTERPIPE (thank you!). Good job to all the riders for making this an event to watch.
Am i the only one who thinks rheeders first run score was a little bit too low?
I tell you what Pinkbike, I'm not gay, Brandon Semenuk isn't handsome even if I was. Please stop publishing so many photos of his face.
I said it last year and Ill say it again, there are more riders worthy of a shot than Semenuk, Pilgrim being a prime example. What have you got against him?