Comox rider Darcy Sharpe came out on top of the pack at a field of the world’s best snowboard slopestyle riders in Perisher, Australia last week.
The training runs took place under blue bird skies and the best of the best were throwing it down and going big. The weather turned to heavy snow on competition day so the event was delayed. The riders took the opportunity to hit the slopes in 30 cm of fresh powder.
As the first international-category slopestyle event of the year, multiple Winter Olympians and X Games medalists had been training in Perisher’s world-class terrain park for the last couple of weeks. The list of riders competing included Canadians Sebastien Toutant, Maxence Parrot and Sharpe’s ex-roommates Tyler Nicholson and Mikey Ciccarelli as well as international big names like Torstien Horgmo and Chas Guildemond.
Sharpe was in fine form, laying down the best run in qualifiers in less than epic conditions, and came out on top with a score of 94. The weather conditions did not improve and the qualifying runs became the finals and Sharpe was announced the winner of the men’s slope contest.
“I’m really excited to be in first with this field that’s here, and the way the conditions were,” he said after the day’s competition. “For everybody who did compete, I think we all had a good time. It was cool kind of hanging at the top of the course – it was really laid back vibes and when it’s like this you just got to go out there and have fun. That’s the only way to get by, really.”
This was the second competition of what will prove to be a challenging travel season. With up to four snowboarding events in Asia including the World Championships and three more in Europe, this winter lots of time will be spent crossing the globe en route to the next comp.