Chaos was the serving of the day and everyone ate big. The "show must go on" mentality prevailed as a whiteout ensued. There was some good money on the line, but the conditions had the Swedish men suggesting that the finalists all split the booty before the finals began. The men were still trying to split the winnings evenly between them when we left, but team and tax issues might prevent any new distributions.

	Women's Podium

Mother Nature planted 26cm of new on Whistler last night and was upping the wind/whiteout factor, on and off, all day long. Everyone agreed that the conditions were marginal at best (for halfpipe) with snow falling and blowing sideways for most of the day. Among the competitors, most of the talk concerned the upcoming deep freeriding. The pounding let up for a moment of calm and blue, but only lasted until the finals began. That's when it really started dumping.

"The young Canadian Kim Dunn stuck the fat 540 twice on this pipe-o-poop and was told she won, but was then told she was in 2nd and Kim Stacey, who thought she was 2nd, was in 3rd when the podium got inflated..."

Few riders were hyper-concerned with the outcome. Poachers dropped in periodically, to protest the format of one qualifying run and one run for the finals. It was entertaining, but kind of dumb. It ended with Marcus Jonsson and Anders Bjoerck taking 1st and 2nd with style for Sweden.

Local girl Maelle Ricker thought she got 3rd, but she got 1st. Either way, she deserved another podium. Ben Wainwright, always representing Whistler, pulled down 4th. The young Canadian Kim Dunn stuck the fat 540 twice on this pipe-o-poop and was told she won, but was then told she was in 2nd and Kim Stacey, who thought she was 2nd, was in 3rd when the podium got inflated. So then Maelle took the top spot, a little uneasily. That got really weird. Kim's 540 was the difference today. She's 17, she's done three World Cups and she threw down. She said it was a "crazy course, crazy weather and a crazy race."

	Snow

Finalists Kim Stacey and Rob Kingwill flew in at two in the morning, fresh from the Grand Prix in Mammoth. Taking 3rd, Rob Kingwill (USA) got a few more thousand bucks to add to his weekend earnings. He went inverted and ended up in the finals, where a 900 invert for landed him on the podium. Stacey couldn't go as big as usual and that in itself sucked. The Swedes have been throwing down some weight of their own here all weekend and just wanted to even out the score on this uneven powder-pipe competition.

When it was all over, Ricker ripped up some powder stashes in the pipe and an unknown poacher launched out and over the banners and into the fence. So some good fun came of it all.

—Hans Prosl, Sweating out Sake for MountainZone.com