Welcome, everyone! Today at "Um...What??" we will be getting educational, with an introductory lesson on the sport of snowboarding –– slopestyle snowboarding, to be exact. And I am just the perfect person to teach you because I know absolutely nothing at all about it I am totally an expert!
I recently discovered how much I love slopestyle snowboarding when one night last week I unexpectedly found my television tuned in to the Winter Dew Tour.
Andy by I love slopestyle snowboarding, I mean:
HELLO! I love a man with a name I can't spell by myself.
The moment we met, I knew Torsteen Torstien Tore (OH WHATEVER) he was meant for me. Because his athletic skills were like nothing I'd ever seen before and involved being immune to gravity as well as spinning over and over without barfing on himself or other people. And let's face it: The qualities that come with being an elite athlete –– discipline, drive, passion, dedication, a traffic-stopping butt –– ARE HOT. I also knew we were meant to be because of the way he was totally adorable.
Plus? Do you know what else is totally adorable? The fact that Torrstine (sp?) was born in 1987. The year I graduated from high school.
Awesome.
Also awesome? THIS:
Toarstein (sp??), sometime last year.
SO WHAT?! Age is just a number blah, blah, plus I don't look a day over 25!!! As far as you know.
Anyway. The original Dew Tour (sponsored by Mountain Dew or maybe invented by the makers of Mountain Dew or –– no! ––I think the Mountain Dew people actually invented snowboarding or something? OH, I DON'T KNOW) debuted in June 2005 and included only non-snow related action sports like BMX and skateboarding and motocross. Then something something this and then blah blah blah another thing that and then something else yadda yadda (nobody really knows for sure) and then ta-da! This year's inaugural winter version of the Dew Tour was born! One hundred gagillion years after I graduated from high school.
The particular Winter Dew Tour event I happened to watch was called the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle Event. I'm guessing it was called this because the competitors were men. With snowboards. And there was this gigantic snow-covered slope they kept going down. All while dressed in the style of people working in a very, very cold forensics lab:
Oh! And speaking of style:
Really, Tourstiin? (sp?)
And as an FYI:
I didn't watch the Superpipe event, however. Because at the time I didn't know anything about it. Because at the time I didn't even know anything about the event I WAS watching. Because I was born tenteen bazillion years ago when they didn't even HAVE snowboards. Or electricity. Or upright walking.
In the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle Event, –– which involves a form of snowboarding known as freestyle –– Toarstyne (sp?) and a bunch of other people I don't care about the other competitors went up against each other on two separate runs down the slope, which is also called the course. Although, it's possible it was nine runs or maybe five or OH WHO KNOWS. Because let's be honest: It's way easy to lose count when you're taking a shot of Disaronno every time one of the on-screen announcers yells, "BIG AIR!!"
During a slopestyle run, there is no clock and snowboarders are awarded points for style and difficulty while performing a wide variety of tricks on their way down the course –– moving around, over, across or down various terrain features like boxes, rails, jumps and jibs. These tricks include things like a switch backside 1260 and a boardslide 270 out and a nose/front board combo and a cab 900 and a 50-50 to backside rodeo 5 off the canon and a cab 270 to frontside boardslide and a switch backside 900 and a frontside 1080 stalefish. See?? This paragraph, by the way, is called totally clearing up all the details for you or you are welcome.
This is one of the previously mentioned tricks. Luckily, it's totally obvious which one, so I don't have to waste my time or yours explaining it.
And now, more slope style!:
Why, Torrstynne? (sp?)
Toerstiene (sp?), who is from Norway which means he is Norwayian, or –– more accurately –– a Viking, really only had one true competitor in the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle Event, the reportedly very popular, crazy-talented (OH, I DOUBT IT) and far, far less adorable snowboarder, Shaun White. Shaun was actually favored to win this event, but that's mostly because he's basically favored to win every single snowboarding event, even the ones he doesn't enter.
Nevermind Shaun White. ALL TORSTEIN (!!) ALL THE TIME!
In what were described as near-perfect runs –– not by me, of course, since I had NO idea at the time WTF was going on EXCEPT THAT IT WAS AWESOME –– Torstein (SP!!) threw big (snow) balls in the face of his no-competition competition by doing things like this:
And also this:
Plus some of this:
HOW CAN SOMETHING SO COLD BE SO HOT??
And by combining these moves with, you know, even more moves, and then combining these combined moves with an equally amazing move known as adorability, rising mega-pro Torstein took first place in the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle Event and won the much-coveted Dew Cup! One hundred bazillion trillion years after I graduated from high school. Congratulations, Torstein!!
I don't even get it.
(I have a PhD in Photoshop. As if I even need to point this out.)
Torstein's Dew Tour victory ceremony! Oh, honestly. It could be anybody under there.
And this winning moment brings us to the conclusion of today's informative and entertaining post on slopestyle snowboarding. I think we can all agree that we've learned the most important basics of the sport, which are Torstein Horgmo IS slopestyle snowboarding and I am old.
And on that note, this also brings us, sadly, to the end of mine and Torstein's love affair. Alas, I just don't think it's going to work out between us, on account of how I just found this...which is sliiiiightly more slope style than I can handle in my advanced years:
Torstein Horgmo: Norway's answer to Flavor Flav??
Somebody pass me the Mountain Dew. And please put a lot of vodka in it.
Don't worry, Torstein. At least we'll always have the Winter Dew Tour Men's Slopestyle Snowboard Event:
Lesley and Torstein: True Love Forever For A Few Minutes.
STOP CRYING, TORSTEIN.
THE END
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P.S. The amount of research I did for this post is amazing! This blog has reached a new level of greatness, where greatness equals oh my god no one is even reading this far down anymore.
P.S.S. Take a minute and a half out of your life and watch this before you go, because the snowboarding shots I included above don't come close to doing the sport justice: