Image courtesy of Sander Taphoorn Photography

Today some clouds moved in over the Crap Sogn Gion Halfpipe but that couldn’t stop the 20 men and 4 women that made the cut in Laax’s icy superpipe to move into Wednesday’s halfpipe event. Amongst those lucky 20 are some guys that are well known faces on the tour.

Kim Rune Hansen fresh off his O’Neill Evolution quarterpipe victory came in full swing qualifying 3rd in his heat together with fellow Norwegian Shredrik Austbo in 2nd. Mathieu Crepel’s protégé, young French ripper Arthur Longo, also finished 2nd in his heat. Mathieu must have been a good mentor…

Also qualified is Stefano Munari from Italy, who just won the highest air in the Davos pipe just a week ago together with young prodigy from the states, Tim Humphreys, currently Nr. 11 on the TTR World Tour. Experience and technique still seems to be key as two pipe veterans, Lesley McKenna and Therry Brunner, both qualified first in their heats and showed the youngsters how it’s done.

Here is the breakdown of the qualifiers:

Halfpipe Women

Linn Haug (NOR)
Queralt Castellet (SPA)
Lesley McKenna (GBR)
Akiko Miwa (JPN)

Halfpipe Men

Drew Brighton (GBR)
Fredrik Austbo (NOR)
Kim Rune Hansen (NOR)
Dolf van der Wal (NED)
Thomas Ruegg (SUI)
Nick Larson (USA)
Arthur Longo (FRA)
Johann Baisamy (FRA)
Fabian Fassnacht (SUI)
Yuya Nakayama (JAP)
Therry Brunner (SUI)
Jean-Jaques Roux (FRA)
Tyler Emond (USA)
Janne Lipsanen (FIN)
Tim Humphreys (USA)
Kosuke Hosokawa (JAP)
Jeremy Thompson (USA)
Stefano Munari (ITA)
Thomas Delfino (FRA)
Olivier Gittler (FRA)

Tomorrow s$#*’s gonna go down in the slopestyle with the invited big dogs trying to fight off the qualifiers, including an international riders lineup which is unlikely to be ever seen in Europe like this again (4 OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS, 10 FORMER BEO WINNERS).

Witness all the live action from tomorrow onwards on www.go211.com and for the buildup / behind the scenes / post masterpiece edit click on TTR’s video player for the real shiz. You better buckle up!