WORLD CLASS RIDERS ARRIVE IN WANAKA, NEW ZEALAND FOR
2011 BURTON NEW ZEALAND OPEN
WANAKA, New Zealand (August 8, 2011) More than 240 athletes are preparing for snowboarding’s premier event in the Southern Hemisphere, the 2011 Burton New Zealand Open (BNZO), as they make their way to the Cardrona Alpine Resort in Wanaka. Presented by MINI and taking place from August 9-13, the event will give snowboarding’s top riders a chance to compete in slopestyle and halfpipe events. A live webcast will be showing all the exciting action from the final two days of the BNZO at Redbull.tv and Opensnowboarding.com
Now in its ninth year, the BNZO is offering a NZ$50,000 prize purse for top-placed riders in both events. MINI will also launch this season’s ramped up version of the Creative Use of Space Award (CUOS) that started for the first time at last year’s BGOS events. Worth a total of $85,000, this year’s CUOS will include three key elements: most creatively built slopestyle feature, most creative trick utilizing the CUOS slopestyle feature and most creative halfpipe trick. If riders didn’t have enough to look forward to, they now have the opportunity to compete for this unique prize roundup kicking off at the BNZO.
As the first event in the Burton Global Open Series and a 5star event on the TTR World Tour, the BNZO attracts a crowd of top riders from around the world to compete. On the men’s side, the confirmed list includes Canadians Mark McMorris and Charles Reid; Americans Louie Vito, Jarret Thomas, Benji Farrow, Danny Davis and Jeremy Thompson; Japanese riders Kudo Kohei, Murakami Daisuke, Ryo Aono and Taku Hiraoka; Norwegians Ulrik Badertscher, Tore Holvik, Torgier Bergrem, Gjermund Braaten, Stale Sandbech and Torstein Horgmo; BNZO’s 2010 Slopestyle Champion Christian Haller (SUI), BNZO’s 2010 Halfpipe Champion Iouri Podladtchikov (SUI), plus Manuel Pietropoli (ITA) and Marko Grilc (SLO), as well as top local riders from New Zealand and Australia, including Mitchell Brown and Scotty James.
The women’s list is fully loaded with champions and Olympians including: 2010 BNZO Halfpipe Champion, 2011 BGOS Overall Champion and three-time Olympian Kelly Clark; 2010 BNZO Slopestyle Champion Jamie Anderson, 2011 US Open Slopestyle Champion Enni Rukajärvi (FIN) and two-time Olympians Hannah Teter, Gretchen Bleiler and Elena Hight, as well as Olympians Queralt Castellet (ESP), Soko Yamaoka (JAP), Sarka Pancochova (CZE), Ursina Haller (SUI) and Cilka Sadar (SLO). Also competing are Kaitlyn Farrington (USA), Spencer O’Brien (CAN), Silvia Mittermuller (GER), and New Zealand’s own Rebecca Torr.
