Alex Bellemare Uses Tech Skills to Win Freeski Streetstyle
Snowboard streetstyle has been a staple at the Dew Tour in Breckenridge for the last several years, but for the first time, the freeskiers were invited to join the mix for the first-ever freeski streetstyle competition.
The contest also attracted some heavy hitters, including a lot of names – Nick Goepper, Alex Beaulieu-Marchand, Henrik Harlaut – that would be familiar to fans of Dew Tour slopestyle.
Freeski Streetstyle
The course provided two options off the bat – a giant drop-in or a handrail – then a series of dumpsters that allowed for some technical maneuvers. From there, skiers could opt for the tire jump or the truck jump. At the bottom of the course was a rainbow rail.
Everyone knows what makes the crowd goes wild – lofty flips and huge spins. Nick Goepper was flipping all over the place – backflip out of the dumpster to a fronftlip over the truck. Robby Franco’s corked 720 over the truck was a thing of beauty. Jesper Tjader went with an exciting switch backflip over the same obstacle. Alex Beaulieu-Marchand had a huge 360 drop-in to start one of his runs.
Freeski Streetstyle Highlights
But while the crowd may love the big stuff, the judges were rewarding technicality, and no one had more of it than Alex Bellemare, who was doing a lipslide 270 on to switch off on the dumpster section up top.
The dumpster was easily Bellemare’s favorite obstacle and the one he was most excited to take advantage of. “It’s the biggest rail,” he said. “I thought of the contest as a rail jam – I didn’t want to do flips everywhere. [The rails] are what I’m best at, so I tried to do that and it worked.”
“I think it’s a good course – it’s really, really fun,” Bellemare said. “We had to really think about our tricks and get really creative. It’s not a downrail like you’d see in a slopestyle contest – it’s much harder to figure out.”
Pat Goodnough also captured himself some bonus money by winning best trick for his zero spin bomb drop.
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