Red Bull Rampage 2012-Part 1, Those who were robbed

Red Bull Rampage pictures! There has been a lot of kvetching on the Interweb (mostly by people who weren't there) about who should have won, placed higher or been awarded best trick. While Fahzure totally supports the judges' discretion and ranking, from where we were standing, it could have been a bit different. We who? The usual suspects (plus Godspeed)!

People rode bikes 4 miles in to the venue:

 And waited for the Red Bull hired help to park them:

Here's what RG3 missed. The riders up high on the ridge waiting their turns, NBC camera guy in the foreground (there were at least 1/2 a dozen):

 Wil White (and fam), riding in jeans, was full on Fahzure-style steez. The flattest, most consistent tables of the comp. Click that Oakley Sender to see what I'm sayin'.

Total flatness off the Oakley Sender:

I'm not sure what judges didn't see in WW's run. 3's, flips? Well Ok, but the steeze and general confidence through 2 clean runs should have been to 10.  Claw had a nasty line, classic Freeride, dropping in from the ridgeline into the main bowl, snowstyle. He even left powder trails:

Because Darren Berrecloth failed to nail his ending 3, and he was heavily docked. While near perfect execution seemed to help out WW only marginally, other riders like Claw and Brendan Semenuk were eliminated despite mind blowing moves.  I think that if Claw had cleaned his 3, he could have hit the podium, then again the judges generally under appreciated the upper section riding, perhaps cause they couldn't see it (well)? Which brings us to Bizet.

Cedric Gracia and Ann Caroline Chausson aside, Fahzure's not seen much out of France of a freeride inspirational nature. Although Bizet finished 2nd, there is a good argument that his 2nd run was the best of the day. His disastrous first run ended less than a quarter of the way through, as he was sent tumbling 80 feet down a slope stopping at the edge of a 20 ft cliff. The solid riding of the second run included:  a terrain hit, upper bowl, backflip;  the Oakley sender; and, a total of 4(!) backflips including one corked.
Landing the backflip clean in the upper bowl:

 Another flip down below:

While a handful riders might have been robbed, no one lost anything, in fact, more than a few gained some respect. We'll talk about more of them in Part 2.