Photos by Phil Erickson courtesy of Burton

The first few days of any of the Burton Global Open Series stops are brutal. They have to whittle fields of hundreds of riders down to just 10 men and 5 women. They do this for the men with a pre-qualifier (25 men get in) and then a qualifier (the 25 dudes compete against each other for the 10 spots.) The 45 women vying to even make it in the even don't get a pre-qualifier. They cut them down from 45 to 5 in one foul swoop. Harsh.

They do this in two days. One day for Slopestyle, and one for Halfpipe. They are long-ass days. Take it from me, I've been at plenty of them- including a couple in New Zealand.

They are even longer when the weather is crappy. And insider reports claim that the weather was not only crappy on the first day during the Slopestyle knock-out rounds at Cardrona Resort, but that it was downright shitty. And, as fate would have it, the shitty weather got shittier after the men finished competing, just as the girls stepped up to the plate. Poor darlings really got the blunt end of the stick this day.

The girls took their first run and the weather got so bad that they postponed the second run until the next day, a rare occurrence at any snowboard competition. The girls are slated to battle out the final run on Friday morning. The top five will go straight into Finals that afternoon.

Here are the Men's results from Slopestyle Qualifications. These lucky few will go on to compete against the riders that are previously qualified from last year's BGOS rankings for Semi-Finals (Semi-Finals and Finals happen this weekend), and the fields are STACKED. The mens start list is boasting riders like Torstein Horgmo, Chas Guldemond, Antti Autti, Danny Davis, Peetu Piiroinen, and Tim Humphreys. On the Women's side slopestyle slayers like Chanelle Sladics, Jamie Anderson, Silvia Mittermuller, and Spencer O'Brien. It's gonna be a good one.

Slopestyle Qualification Results

MEN
1 Atsushi Ishikawa JPN Flow
2 Sergey Tarasov RUS Burton
3 Christian "Hitch" Haller SUI Burton
4 Tore Holvik NOR Sweet
5 Arthur Longo FRA Volcom
6 Sage Kotsenburg USA Quiksilver
7 Eric Beauchemin USA DC
8 Gjermund Braaten NOR DC Shoe Co USA
9 Johann Baisamy FRA Billabong
10 Jye Kearney AUS Burton


Check back for more results and other random crap from the 2009 Burton New Zealand Open.