The 2011 Nike Open Dew Tour at Breckenridge Colorado just wrapped up semi-finals for the men’s and woman’s slopestyle, and halfpipe events. It was brisk, cold, December day, as the competition got under way. The first event of the day was the woman’s halfpipe semi finals. The field started with 17 ladies, but only 6 would make it to the finals. Some of the standouts were Kaitlyn Farrington’s huge frontside 7’s , and the super consistent riding of China’s Xuetong Cai. Expect big things out of her in the near future.

In the end the top five riders when like this:

1. Xuetong Cai
2. Kaitlyn Farrington
3. Queralt Castellet
4. Gretchen Bleiler
5. Maddy Schaffrick
6. Kelly Clark

Right after the woman, it was the guys turn. These dudes really turned up the heat for this event. It really is impressive on Breckenridge’s part that they are even able to have a pipe of this size up right night since there’s no snow.
The talk of the town so far has been the return of Shaun White to the Dew Tour. Shaun has been quite the illusive fellow, only taking a little bit of practice, and just not really being around. There’s also been speculation that his riding just isn’t quite as on top as it used to be. Well, today during the pipe semi’s Shaun shut up all of the rumors. He rode like a bat out of hell and was able to grab the top spot. While Shaun got the top spot, it wasn’t with out a fight from IPOD, and Kazu, who each got 2nd and 3ed respectively. The top 9 who are moving on to tomorrow’s finals to ride with Louie Vito, Steve Fisher, and JJ Thomas are:

1. Shaun White
2. Iouri Podlachikov
3. Kazuhiro Kokubo
4. Christian Haller
5. Keito Kumazaki
6. Danny Davis
7. Scotty Lago
8. Luke Mitrani
9. Kohei Kudo

The Slopestyle semi-finals was also one for the books. The course was tight, and the jumps were big. If you didn’t land the first jump, you would have been screwed for the rest of the jumps. Rounding out the day with the top run was Chas Guldemond. Chaz said “I had a lot of anxiety going into today, I just wanted to do well.” Well breathe easy my friend because you did do well. Heading to the finals with Chaz to ride with Torstein Horgmo, Eric Willett, and Mark McMorris are:

Mikkel Bang
Gjermund Brattan
Seppe Smits
Sage Kotsenburg
Sebastian Toutant
Charles Reid
Sondre Tiller
Sam Hulbert

Don’t forget to check back here for more coverage and video footage from this weekend’s finals. By the looks of the semis, it’s going to be insane.