After last night's wild MTV Snowball party at the Tandadalen Fjällhotel, riders were thankful to have a 1pm start in the halfpipe competition. However, those riders who stayed out too late last night awoke to a dose of reality this afternoon with fresh winds and temperatures of -7° Centigrade. Luckily for them, when they got to the start of the season's first floodlit finals, the winds slowed and the conditions remained pretty good.

	Tricia Byrnes

Similar to the opening ceremony here three days ago, a crowd of about 1,000 people lined up at the pipe. Their fellow countryman Thomas Johansson thanked them for cheering him on by taking the highest score in both the first and final runs. With today's win, he claimed his second gold this season (after his first-ever victory at the Mont-Sainte-Anne event just before Christmas).

"It's nice to win a World Cup in my home country," the quiet guy from Kiruna, Sweden, said, "the pipe was pretty good, much better than during training, and it's fun to ride at floodlight; I am really used to it."

NOKIA World Team rider Pasi Voho of Finland, who took second, agreed. "Night events are really fun. You have so much more people attending it, dark all around with just the pipe in the light, it really is a perfect atmosphere."

Sweden's Anders Bjoerck took the bronze, while Johansson's win today confirmed his lead in the halfpipe World Cup standings, ahead of his teammate Fredrik Sterner, who finished fourth, and reigning World Champion Ricky Bower taking eighth.

"...it was pretty steep with the walls lacking a bit of transition, but all in all night finals over here are always fun racing...."— Tricia Byrnes, winner

With US rider Tricia Byrnes winning the women's competition, the NOKIA World Team captured its fifth gold medal in just three days of racing.

"The pipe was hard to ride," Byrnes said, "it was pretty steep, with the walls lacking a bit of transition, but all in all night finals over here are always fun racing."

Sweden's Anna Olofsson took third ahead of Japanese rider Michiyo Hasimoto, who claimed her first ever podium today. Germany's Sabine Wehr-Hasler's sixth place gives her the lead in the halfpipe standings again ahead of Anna Olofsson and Sweden's Anna Hellman who did not make it to the finals today.

Tandadalen organizers had been trembling prior to last night. Earlier this week, the pipe designer (a.k.a the pipe dragon) broke and so they were forced to send a crew member down to Switzerland to get spare parts. The guy only returned to Tandadalen last night and, after having fixed the gear box. So while others enjoyed themselves at the Snowball, crews here spent the entire night shaping the pipe in preparation for today's event.

The second halfpipe event is scheduled for tomorrow.

—Britta Semmler, MountainZone.com Correspondent