The Burton Canadian Open, known as CANO, kicked off today with superpipe semi-finals. Top men and women took to the pipe at the Canada Olympic Park near the edge of Calgary, Alta.

Many of today's competitors are came directly from the Winter X Games in Aspen so they were ready to ride despite the cooler temps and rock solid pipe. The weather was cold, but above freezing, which created an icy pipe that took a bit of getting used to for most of the riders.

Kelly Clark has been on a tear this season claiming titles at almost every contest she's entered. Less than a week ago, Clark put down a massive 1080 at the X Games, earning her a place in history, and a gold medal for the event. Today, Clark demonstrated her domination of the field by taking the top spot in qualifiers with a score that was nearly 25 points higher than second place finisher, Kendall Brown. Rounding out the top three was Cilka Sadar who was also riding solidly.

On the men's side of things, Brett Esser from Iowa showed up for the showdown and destroyed the pipe. His smooth style and amplitude wooed the judges and earned him the top spot in qualifiers. Christian Haller took the second place spot, and Jack Mitrani rounded out the top three.

Check out Jack's third place run POV style. It'll leave you dizzy.



Men's Qualifier Results:


Women's Results:


Head on over to Open Snowboarding to stay up to date with all the action.

Americans love to hate Canadians. They talk funny, and, well, they hate on us even harder.
But as far as snowboarding and skiing are concerned, you'd have to be blind with a third grade reading level to disrespect their snow scene. Their mountain ranges are huge and snowy and their riders go even huger... Below is a recap of the Burton Canadian Open on Fri., Sat. and Sun.

40 men and 16 women competed in the Burton Canadian Open Halfpipe titles worth CAD$7,500 each. Canada fittingly took five of the six podium spots. Part of the Burton Global Open Series and the Swatch Ticket To Ride World Snowboard Tour, the first annual Canadian Open showcased some of the world's top snowboarders competing at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary. Men's winner Jed Anderson is in fact a COP local and only a senior in high school.

Halfpipe Finals Men
1 Jed Anderson CAN Salomon 94.67
2 Justin Lamoureux CAN Whistler 92.67
3 Jeff Batchelor CAN Burton 87.00

Halfpipe Finals Women
1 Palmer Taylor CAN Burton 82.83
2 Sarah Conrad CAN Ride 80.33
3 Lisa Wiik NOR Roxy 73.33

Mikkel Bang (NOR) and Silvia Mittermueller (GER) won the men's and women's slopestyle competition. The 600m slopestyle course featured street rails, a dance floor, boxes, two massive kickers and a metal mushroom cap:-) Mikkel Bang's $7,500 winning run looked like this - frontside nosepress on a flatdown, 270 to frontside boardslide on a street rail, backside rodeo stalefish on the first kicker, and a huge switch backside 1260.

Slopestyle Finals Men
1 Mikkel Bang NOR Burton 91.50
2 Sebastien Toutant CAN O`Neill 87.83
3 Charles Reid CAN Burton 83.83

Slopestyle Finals Women
1 Silvia Mittermueller GER Oakley 78.50
2 Megan Ginter USA Ride 77.83
3 Mary Sallah USA Flow 73.17

With the Burton Canadian Open over, it's on to the Nissan X-Trail Asian Open, taking place from February 24 - March 1, 2009 at ALTS Bandai Resort in Fukushima, Japan. The Nissan X-Trail Asian Open is the fifth stop on the 2008-2009 Burton Global Open Series. Chas Guldemond and Jamie Anderson are currently in the lead for the $100,000 Burton Global Open Series Championship title. The BGOS boasts the most lucrative cumulative prize purse in snowboarding with over $900,000 in equal prize money to men and women.
The Burton Global Open Series is also part of the Swatch Ticket To Ride World Snowboard Tour (TTR), the largest group of independent freestyle snowboard events in the world. TTR ranks riders based on their results at participating competitions and crowns a TTR World Champion at the US Open. For more information on the Swatch TTR World Tour, visit www.ttrworldtour.com.