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Two or three years ago
Larry Hall ("Woolbury") sent us a few photos of young
Eben Mond launching big air and carving tele turns just a couple
of days into his freeheel career, it was clear then that Eben
was a natural. He still is. At the comp last weekend we saw Eben
charge down the Headwall, pop off a rock band, land smoothly,
point 'em towards a large snow covered boulder, throw a huge
backflip with park-style amplitude, stick it, and ski away at
high speed. It was one of the highlights of the entire weekend,
and Eben's run leads off this video.
Eventual 4th place finisher
E.J. Poplawski follows with a double launch into the bowl, and
6 high speed teles later he's across the finish line. But not
everything goes as planned for every athlete. Sam Fox, who took
second place at Alpine Meadows and who actually led champ Dylan
Crossman going into the final day out in Cali, was expected to
chase Dylan once again at CB, instead, as you'll see here, foxy
tripped up on some rocks and got worked hard, after which he
launches a large old-school spread eagle, only to crater hugely
again, shortly after sticking the landing.
We've got a few other competitors
in here as well, but school is definitely in session during the
last 45 seconds of this video. Crossman's superb, no hesitation
tele-ing of a difficult Headwall line takes center stage. It's
a textbook performance, nothing less than a primer on how to
win one of these things. His score of 39.6 was Dylan's highest
of the weekend and gave him a huge, almost 8 point lead going
into the finals.
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