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Posted on Monday December 21st at 10:59 a.m.
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Wells was the only skier to land his first run down and with a score of 84.75 he stood in first place until midway through the second run when he beat his own score with an impressive run that included a double flip followed by a switch 900 midway down earning him a score of 91.5.
Wells on Podium with Mike Riddle and Xavier Bertoni
The pressure seemed to be getting to the athletes at the year's first major competition.
"Yeah, I think it was just nerves," Wells said of the other rider's troubles. "I just wanted to land a solid run and then step it up for my second one."
And that's exactly what Wells did, stomping a double flip on his first hit and cruising down the pipe with ease.
In the end, Mike Riddle laid down a run that included a double flip, two 900s and an alley-oop 360 flatspin that sent him to the top of the Dew Tour Podium, narrowly edging out Wells.
"Jossi killed it too," said Riddle. "We had pretty close to the same run, just the bottom was different." Riddle nailed his signature alley-oop "bwarrow," as he called it, for the final hit.
"It was crazy," Wells said of the level of skiing. "We had the best halfpipe skiers in the world here. It was great just to watch."
France's Xavier Bertoni, the reigning X Games champ, scored 90.75 putting him on the podium in third place.
In one of the largest turnouts of New Zealander's at an international event this season, the kiwi contingent showed that they could compete with the world's best.
Shelly Gotlieb, riding at Cardrona Alpine Resort Photo: Pablo Azocar
Ohakune's Shelly Gotlieb made it through to the six-woman final in women's snowboard slopestyle and Stef Zeestraten (Christchurch) made it through to the 12-man final in men's snowboard slopestyle.
For Gotlieb and Zeestraten, the result was above expectations, as both riders made it to the Final amidst an extremely tough field of international riders in their first competition of the Northern Hemisphere season.
Their teammates on the women's Halfpipe Snowboard team Kendall Brown and Paula Mitchell made it through the qualifying rounds to the Prelims but failed to make the finals.
Other kiwis on the New Zealand national teams who competed include halfpipe snowboarders Ben Stewart and Rebecca Sinclair and slopestyle snowboarder, Jake Koia.
Wells's younger brother Byron, also a freeskier, took one run through the pipe but was in too much pain to continue, due to an injury to his heal in October. He decided to wait this one out so that he is in top form for the second stop of the tour.
Snow Sports New Zealand is the official governing body and National Sports Organisation representing all snow sports in New Zealand.
Winter Dew Tour
The Winter Dew Tour consists of three major, multi-sport events spanning across the country, with a cumulative points system, and a $1.5 million competitive purse. Each event features men and women's snowboard (superpipe and slopestyle), and men's freeskiing (superpipe and slopestyle). At season's end, the overall point's leaders in the six disciplines are crowned year-end champions and awarded the prestigious Dew Cup. As part of an Alli property, key lifestyle elements compliment the competitions at each Tour event including the Festival village, specialty competitions, and live cutting edge music. The Winter Dew Tour is broadcast live on NBC Sports with additional competition and lifestyle broadcasts on MTV, MTV2 and USA. The Winter Dew Tour is also distributed on Fuel TV, Universal HD, Rush HD, and internationally on Eurosport, Fox Australia, Extreme Channel and Allarco superchannel. More information can be found at www.allisports.com.
For all the news and video clips from the first stop of the Winter Dew Tour 2010, log on to: http://www.allisports.com/tours/winter-dew-tour