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Four days at the Open is enough to do any normal human being in. The riders have a way of stepping up like superheroes to the long days and nights, and stepping up is just what they did Sunday at the first-ever slopestyle finals.

The weather was mercifully warm and sunny, and the park was in much better condition, with smoother transitions, enlarged tables, and less overall chop than the riders encountered in qualifiers.

Chris Englesman was the first to take advantage of the improved conditions, and threw down on the rails as usual, locking on a switch frontside boardslide into a tailslide to fakie, and rounding out his run with a frontside 7 to backside 5 combo.

Chris was also one of the only riders to even attempt, let alone stick the gnarly s-rail. Chris finished the day in 4th.

Vermont's own Ryan Paris rode super-strong and is definitely the kid to watch in the future. Ryan threw down tech runs consisting of boardslides to fakie, cab boardslides, backside 5's, and cab 9's. He also broke out one of the gnarliest tricks of the day, pulling a backside rodeo over the channel gap left-to-right (the hard way) between the biggest tables in the park. His performance earned him a 3rd-place finish.

Travis Rice was easily the favorite coming in to the finals, and showed why busting a run consisting of a boardslide to fakie on the step-down rail, into a cab boardslide to 270-out on the fun-box, a cab 5, a frontside 3, a huge cork 5 over the channel, all of which topped off by a boardslide to fakie over the entire 50-foot rail.

In the end, the only rider to top Travis Rice was local hero Rahm Klampert. Rahm grabbed the top spot on the podium by riding solid for the entire day. His early run consisted of a burly backside 7 to frontside 7 to switch 5 combo, and was easily the run to beat. Well, beat it he did with his insane last run of a 7 to 7 to 9 combo, which easily secured the big check.

The Sunday crowd left stoked on the level of performance, and slopestyle is sure to become a staple at the US Open of Snowboarding.

— Courtesy, Fuse Sports Marketing