{"id":803971,"date":"2020-02-07T16:49:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T23:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=378676"},"modified":"2020-02-07T16:49:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T23:49:00","slug":"adaptive-snowboarders-ride-gently-to-tame-powder-filled-banked-slalom-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/adaptive-snowboarders-ride-gently-to-tame-powder-filled-banked-slalom-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Adaptive snowboarders ride \u2018gently\u2019 to tame powder-filled banked slalom course"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Owen Pick of England propels himself into the Dew Tour banked slalom course during Friday\u2019s adaptive banked slalom competition at Copper Mountain Resort. Pick won the race with a time of 1:06.02, more than a second-and-a-half ahead of runner-up Matti Suur-Hamari of Finland.<\/strong>
Antonio Olivero \/ aolivero@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

COPPER MOUNTAIN \u2013 Owen Pick of England had to think for a moment about the best way to summarize what it was like racing through the Dew Tour slalom course during one of the biggest Copper Mountain Resort powder days in memory.<\/p>\n

Then, it hit Friday\u2019s adaptive snowboard banked slalom champion. On an afternoon when bottomless powder conditions postponed all other Dew Tour events, Friday\u2019s competition was about riding as light and careful as possible on a course built for speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like trying to be as gentle as possible,\u201d the 28-year-old Pick said. \u201cIf you tried to make any kind of a move or anything, you weren\u2019t getting the time. But it was kind of fun. They worked hard and got the course ready, and it worked out alright.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twenty of the world\u2019s best men\u2019s and women\u2019s adaptive snowboarders \u2014 16 men and four women \u2014 dropped into the Dew Tour slalom course on Friday as snow continued to pour down and gust sideways. Despite the inclement conditions, poor visibility and humidity, each rider had the chance for two runs through the course conceived by Summit County local Daniel Gale and Copper Mountain-based Adaptive Action Sports.<\/p>\n

In the end, Pick tamed the tricky course better than any of the 15 other men\u2019s riders, snaking through it in a time of 1 minute and 6.2 seconds on his first run, which turned out to be his fastest. Despite living in England, Pick said he\u2019s improved his skill to be one of the best para snowboarders in the world thanks to living and training each winter in the mountains of France.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn France, we do get days like this, rarely,\u201d Pick said, \u201cbut these racing conditions were just bonkers. But it was fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finnish 33-year-old Matti Suur-Hamari, who dropped in second to last on Friday, ended up posting the second-fastest time, with his second run time of 1:07.58. Even with his success on the course, Suur-Hamari remarked how Friday\u2019s course and conditions were a challenge like he\u2019s never experienced before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t been at the course where it\u2019s knee-deep snow in some spots,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was super slow. There was one almost fast line, and if you stayed on that line, you could do pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s third-place finisher in the men\u2019s competition was Keith Gabel, a native of Ogden, Utah. Having lived there, and residing in Aspen now, the 35-year-old Gabel said his familiarity with pow days may just have helped him to post a time of 1:07.86 on his second run through the course. The challenging and fun course \u2014 featuring a quarter-pipe element and a hip jump toward the bottom \u2014 became intimidating in Friday\u2019s conditions.<\/p>\n

Gabel said he was grateful to the Woodward Copper terrain parks crew who worked hard Friday to prep and manicure the course through dumping snow.<\/p>\n

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Dew Tour men’s adaptive slalom podium describes competing on pow day<\/a><\/p>\n

At Friday’s Dew Tour action the adaptive banked slalom was the only event to go off due to the truly epic powder-day conditions. Despite the gusty winds and snow-filled slalom course, Owen Pick of England, Matti Suur-Hamari of Finland and Keith Gabel of Aspen finished atop the podium. Go to bit.ly\/DewTourDay2 for all of Summit Daily\u2019s extensive coverage. #DewTour #PowderDay #ExploreSummit<\/p>\n

Posted by Summit Daily News<\/a> on Friday, February 7, 2020<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cWe were so lucky to have the course crew up early this morning doing their work,\u201d Gabel said. \u201cI know we had long course holds due to multiple different reasons. \u2026 And coming up here, I love pow, I\u2019m a pow hound by trade. So getting into (the slalom course) just, again, like these guys said, (I was) trying to stay light on the feet and hold the line. I actually rode someone else\u2019s trench for most of the way down and held onto it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved the quarter pipe,\u201d he added. \u201cI ride halfpipe back home and to take the design that Daniel from Adaptive Action Sports designed and really run with it and build something, it\u2019s like something we\u2019ve never actually seen before having a quarter pipe in there and then a hip jump here at the bottom. They did a great job. It provided a lot of snow for us and a lot of man hours and a lot of (snow)cat time and we couldn\u2019t be more grateful for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the women\u2019s competition, without Kiana Clay of Dillon competing due to a head injury suffered in practice Thursday, Lisa Bunschoten of the Netherlands won with a time of 1:14.11. Brittany Coury was the runner-up with a time of 1:17.85 while Peggy Martin finished in third with a time of 1:28.51. Summit local Arlene Cohen finished in fourth with a time of 1:38.74.<\/p>\n

As for Summit locals in the men\u2019s competition, Joe Pleban finished in seventh (1:09.18), Zach Miller took eighth (1:09.19), Garrett Geros finished tenth (1:10.21) and Mike Minor was 12th (1:10.50).<\/p>\n

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Barring a last-minute change due to today\u2019s DEEP powder-day conditions (possible) the Dew Tour adaptive snowboard banked slalom competition is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Here\u2019s a 360-video glimpse of the course from Thursday practice at Copper Mountain of two Adaptive Action Sports competitors, including Frisco local and Paralympic gold medalist Mike Minor (@gnarlynubby), with Evan Strong following.Go to this link for live updates from Friday and all of the Summit Daily\u2019s extensive #DewTour coverage: bit.ly\/DewTourDay2Video courtesy Mike Minor #powderday #exploresummit<\/p>\n

Posted by Summit Daily News<\/a> on Friday, February 7, 2020<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Owen Pick of England propels himself into the Dew Tour banked slalom course during Friday\u2019s adaptive banked slalom competition at Copper Mountain Resort. Pick won the race with a time of 1:06.02, more than a second-and-a-half ahead of runner-up Matti Suur-Hamari of Finland.Antonio Olivero \/ aolivero@summitdaily.com COPPER MOUNTAIN \u2013 Owen Pick of England had to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-803971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-23 08:20:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}