Dear Interweb,

The US Open just wrapped up and was a completely different event than past seasons. Previously, the US Open had been the busiest, most chaotic, worst organized and most important Open event of the season. With the drop of the slopestyle and big air events due to the flailing economy, the competition took on a far mellower vibe. With 50 athletes competing, opposed to 250, everyone was able to get more training thus the overall stress levels dropped significantly.

The weather really cleared up for semi-finals and finals. (On Friday, for qualifiers, it was puking wet snow and extremely foggy.)  I ended up 4th in finals as my safe run wasn’t quite enough to get me on the podium and I crashed my 900 on my more difficult run. Though it was a disappointment to end my podium streak in the US Open (2nd in 2007, and 3rd in 2008), it was also good to get a few 900s out of the way after my bad crash at the end of January.

Photo from Freeskier! Thank you Shay for putting my site on your Freeskier reports!

More of a success story: my two Canadian teammates, Justin Dorey and Mike Riddle, ended up 1st and 3rd respectively. I was so stoked to see both my boys kill it!  

My Canadians in matching outfits on the podium

I think this is my favourite picture of Justin, Mike and myself. X-Games 2009

Sincerely,

Roz G