Scott athletes crush it at Aspen Open

Aspen, CO - This was the inaugural Aspen Open and it proved to be a strong field and one of the most exciting days of halfpipe competition this season outside the X Games. Matt Phillippi won the event, while Scott riders Taylor Felton came in fourth, Jon Marks was seventh, and Scott Hibbert was ninth. Hibbert, who qualified second behind Peter Olenick in the semis, had been skiing very strong and threw some creative variations. Last week he put on a show for the crowd in Breckenridge by throwing a back-flip to fakie to switch front-flip. This week, he incorporated this combo into his actual competition run. Hibbert, always a crowd favorite, guarantees to make things interesting and today was no different. After a second run wash-out, Hibbert stopped in the middle of the pipe and the announcer cued up AC/DC’s Thunderstruck. Hibbert proceeded to tuck half the pipe and then lay down a massive 17-foot DOUBLE backflip. Unfortunately, he caught his chest on the deck and fell backwards into the pipe in a horrific looking fall. Miraculously he thrust his hands in the air in victory -- totally unscathed. Thank you, Scott Hibbert.

In the womens field, Scott’s own Angeli Van Lannen came in third place with an impressive run that consisted of a huge safety grab, then a big tail grab, five, alleyoop, five, alleyoop, and tip grab followed by an alley oop three. Following her in fourth place was Gina Gmeiner. Gina was stoked to go to the Open and have another chance at the X Games pipe, because she was hurt so bad at the X Games. During training she hooked an edge and landed on her bad hip and banged up her ribs. She wasn’t going to ski, but took some ibuprofen and decided that she couldn’t let that sweet pipe go to waste. She laid down two more mellow runs with some big grabs up top and three spins down at the bottom and ended up fourth.

Also a shout out to Whitney Wickes for placing third in the Slopestyle!

Aspen Open
Taylor Felton on the podium. Angeli Van Lannen on the podium.