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Index: Spring Break Mormon Style
Audio: Words Of The Champions

Christophe Maierhofer pulled out his first Swatch win for his Austrian brethren under the burning Utah sun today. Christophe came back from the losers round to find himself in the finals and the lead. "I didn't let that happen to me again. I want on be on the podium, that's what I'm here for. It's not about the money," he acknowledged afterwards.

Shake Your Booty

Marguerite Cossettini made her role clear here as well in The Canyons. She was on course and nothing was going to knock her off. This, on a course that was continually containing contact among the usually friendly females. Marguerite been on course and on the top of the podiums recently with last week's Vans Triple Crown win and the MTV Boardercross win before that. This however is her first Swatch win of the season and our computer analysis modeling cannot confirm or deny the presence of beer as a factor in her recent winning.

These reports of a lot of contact with the women were only confirmed by Cossettini. "I kept seeing people coming at me and thinking they better not knock me down," she said. "I didn't care for the beer here, but the race was great," she smiled fresh from a champagne shower on the podium.

Palmer's absence wasn't missed much. Many ruling riders stepped up strong to fill his place. Drew Neilson won three of his five heats. Veteran Dave Dowd kept in front of the kids and out of the mess until the finals. Jason Brown was always up there along with Phillip Conte who stole second from Drew. Bertrand Denervaud never looks out of control and always can be seen in the finals start gate.

This is where we get a glimpse of the difference between the men and the boys of boardercross who continue to fight their way to the finals week in and out against the best riders in the world. These are the best freeriders in the world.

The men's finals were saucy. "It was crazy, I had a good start. Bertrand had a little bit of a better start than me, but then I saw him speed checking and something went click in my head. So I just pointed it to the jumped and thought if I make it I'm happy, if not I don't give a shit. So I did it and had the lead," Christophe grinned.

Drew Neilson didn't get the start he wanted and was forced to hit the first jump after the leaders. Drew was pressing down hard on Christophe into the berms with his shadow creeping up fast on him. Christophe said he saw Drew out of the corner of his eye and thought "if he's going outside, I'll be there." Unfortunately, we didn't get to see Drew make the Herculean pass in berms. Drew spun out and Phillip Conte blasted past faster than you can say "who was that French freak." Then it became a chase with Drew chewing on Phillip's heels the rest of the way down, almost catching him before the last launch.

Miss Marguerite

The women's race wasn't as snug all the way down, but that doesn't mean it wasn't exciting. The ladies were hucking their meat out there with cataclysmic crashes could be seen almost every heat in the uneven rockin' rollers. Some of the men had learned how to dump enough speed before these to straight line it through. The ladies however, always seemed to to be bumpin' and grinding through here with at least one complete ejection from the course per hour.

Canadian favorite Mayumi Fukuda didn't even make it that far when during her semi-final run she shot off course on the first big American kicker. Everyone at the start gate gasped as Mayumi soared 15 feet; she was shaken hard, but finished the course like any proud Canadian would. Nothing broken, but she might be walking funny for a while.

Christophe's Head, Poetzl's Tongue

All agreed that the snow nipples were a good idea, but overall a waste of snow. More importantly, everyone agreed that this was the longest and hardest course this year. So even though everyone's legs were burning bad by the time they found the bottom, they all seemed to revel in it.

The sun had people peeling down all day and the free beer in the tent at the bottom had everyone dancing with a false sense of hydration. I (in my infamous idiocy) stripped down to a tank top (wife beater) to prove that my skinny, Seattle arms are by no means even close to Nillard's big guns. So now I extended my perfect goggle face burn line to include a red painted wife beater on my torso. It takes a true idiot to recognize "Damn!. I look like a freakin' IIIIIIIIIIIIIDIOT!" I guess I have to complete the picture with a nice thong burn on my butt.

Stay tuned next week for pictures of a naked guy with strange sunburn lines poaching the US Open halfpipe with bottle rockets shooting out his butt.

— Hans Prosl, excavating Utah powder for The Mountain Zone

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