Grand Prix Copper: Men’s superpipe qualifiers

Shaun White took home 1st place

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Louie Vito took home 2nd place and stomped his double cork.

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Greg Bretz took home 3rd for the qualifiers tweaking big!

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Thanks to Pat Bridges for telling me I shouldn’t miss the Grand Prix contest, because of him I made my way down to check it out. It was insane to see the amplitude of the tricks and be surrounded by riders I’ve heard of for years.

I ran into Greg Wyman from 686 who showed me how to be a action sports photographer, I’m still working on the perfection of that look.

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Boards were getting tuned to perfection at the top of the superpipe so each rider had it dialed for speed!

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For the first heat I took some photos from the deck and then moved down to the bottom of the halfpipe to meet with Fuse Marketing’s Heather and Nike 6.0’s Sierra.

Myself with Sierra and Heather

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The constant pitter of twitter going on at the bottom

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We ended up watching the first heat from the bottom and talking snowboarding.  The first heat had some rough crashes, I really hope Jeremy Thompson and Van Bjoern Dongen get back to the snow and aren’t too badly injured.

The Judges and announcers section at the bottom of the halfpipe

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The second heat I took a couple laps with T-bird, Heather and Sierra for some awesome turns on the mountain.  It was a good break from the contest and after we enjoyed some lunch.

Louie Vito was all smiles hiking up the halfpipe.

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Snowboarder Magazine’s Pat and Snowboard Revolution George on hand to capture every moment

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I took the majority of photos during the first and second heats today and here’s a variety of shots I got on the mountain.  I didn’t write down the tricks so sorry for not naming everything that the riders did on the mountain.

Danny Davis

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Dustin Craven

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Dylan Bidez

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Jack Mitrani

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Kevin Pearce

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Zach Black

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Staale Sandbech airing over Pat Bridges

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Pat Bridges at the end of the day checking out his captured moments

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Snowboarder’s T-bird and Greg Betz at the end of the qualifiers celebrating

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Tomorrow is the Grand Prix finals where the men and women from qualifiers will be bringing their best tricks to the pipe.  I’m stoked to see the finals and especially the women throw down, so expect a lot more photos and fun times on the mountain tomorrow.