Winter X Games 14 – Women’s Results

Over and out. Winter X Games 14 has wrapped. Four days in Aspen delivered five-peats, double three-peats, and back-to-back golds. Read on to find out how the women fared.

Friday, Jan. 29th – Women’s Skiing Superpipe

A deserving  Jen Hudak won Women’s SuperPipe Gold. In her sixth Winter X, the 23 year old Utah local spent the last three years pushing progressively harder toward the top of the podium. Last year she finished second by a microscopic margin and Winter X 14 turned out to be her year.

1. Jen Hudak
2. Megan Gunning
3. Roz Groenewoud
4. Mirjam Jaeger
5. Anais Caradeux
6. Sarah Burke

Saturday, Jan. 30 -  Women’s Snowboard X

In the Snowboard X Lindsey Jacobellis defended her title, but not without a lot of heat from Helene Olafsen. Watch for this rivalry to be another one that will  be continued in Vancouver.

1. Lindsey Jacobellis
2. Helene Olafsen
3.  Joanie Anderson
4. Maria Ramberger
5. Alexandra Jekova
6. Emilie Aubry

Saturday, Jan. 30 – Women’s Snowboard Superpipe

As expected, the Women’s Superpipe ended up being  a competition between Gretchen Bleiler and Kelly Clark .  In her final turn, Clark needed to best Bleiler’s 96.66; she dropped and stomped her entire run, but it was too close to call.  Gretchen probably had more technical tricks, but Kelly had a lot of amplitude and tricks, too.  In the end,  Bleiler took the top prize, becoming the only woman to win four times. Hannah Teter took third but her score was 26 points shy of Bleiler’s.

1. Gretchen Bleiler
2. Kelly Clark
3. Hannah Teter
4. Soko Yamaoka
5. Ellery Hollingsworth
6. Elena Hight

Sunday, Jan 31 – Women’s Slopestyle

Jenny Jones won the Women’s Slopestyle final for the second year in a row. She out-shredded Jamie Anderson and Janna Meyen-Weatherby, neither of whom were at Winter X last year.

It was a progressive day in the park. Janna Meyen-Weatherby was incredibly close to nailing a cab nine, which would’ve been a Winter X first for women. Unfortunately, the landing ended up earning her bronze behind Jamie Anderson’s silver but she certainly lit a fire during the comp.

1. Jenny Jones
2. Jamie Anderson
3. Janna Meyen-Weatherby
4. Kjersti Oestgaard Buass
5. Hana Beaman
6. Cheryl Maas

Women’s Skier X

History was made when France’s Ophelie David took home her fourth straight Women’s Skier X gold medal, making her the first skier — male or female — of any Winter X skiing discipline to four-peat. The 33-year-old mother of two passed two Canadian women — Kelsey Serwa, 20, and Ashleigh McIvor, 26 — wjp finished second and third respectively, halfway through the course and outlasted them to the finish to claim a record fourth gold medal.

1. Ophelie David
2. Kelsey Serwa
3. Ashleigh McIvor
4. Fanny Smith
5. Marte Gjefsen
6. Aleisha Cline

Oh, and if you hadn’t already guessed, Shaun White took home gold in the Men’s Superpipe final.

Summit on the Summit

File this under Pretty Good!

Did you know that over 1 billion people don’t have access to clean water? In fact, every 15 seconds a child dies from a preventable water-related disease – that is the equivalent of crashing a 747 jet filled with children into a mountainside every 2 hours every day of the year.

Multi-talented musician Kenna is hoping to change that. The Ethiopian-born artist is taking a stand by climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa – the highest free standing mountain in the world with a peak of 19,430 ft – in order to raise awareness for the worldwide water crisis.

Kenna’s own father nearly died of a water-borne illness in his youth, so it’s an issue that he takes very personally. He won’t be alone on his trek, though — he’s bringing along friends like Lupe Fiasco and Jessica Biel,and a host of others will join him on the trip to the peak.

As you can imagine, you can’t simply put on your climbing shoes and wander up the over 19,000 feat that make up Africa’s highest elevation. It takes a great deal of training, and Kenna and his team are all hard at work.

We love the fact that Kenna is going to be joined by some great women on his Summit on the Summit (SOTS). Biel will be joined by Elizabeth Gore, Santigold and others on the climb.

Visit the SOTS site for more info and to follow along live when they start the trek January 7th.

Kenna also did a tune for his Summit On The Summit project called ‘Turn‘ which is worth checking out.

NY Liberty overseas basketball update

The Liberty women definitely know how to score in their WNBA NY home court, but how do they bring their game on in other parts of the world?

Follow NY Liberty team players Shameka Christon, Essence Carson, Sidney Spencer, and more overseas as they play to help their European teams win.

From Poland to Turkey, and France to Israel, these players can handle the ball anywhere on the map! Check out this week’s overseas update here: http://blogs.msg.com/gameon/2009/11/17/liberty-hoopla-overseas-update-1117/

In other WNBA news,  the LA Lakers celebrated the accomplishments of recently retired LA Sparkers center Lisa Leslie during halftime at Tuesday’s game.  Great to see the huge crowd focus their attention away from Kobe for a moment to acknowledge this terrific player.

Female athletes outperform their male counterparts in college

College athletes are still setting records and dispelling myths — in the classroom.

The NCAA’s latest graduation numbers show nearly four out of five student-athletes earn their diplomas on time, an all-time high, and federal statistics show athletes are still more likely to graduate on time than other students.

“The misconception is that NCAA student-athletes are not good students,” interim NCAA President Jim Isch said in a conference call Wednesday. “The truth, as [late NCAA President] Myles reminded people, is that they could perform in the classroom and they outperformed the general student body in almost every measure.”

NCAA officials believe the improving numbers can be attributed to stronger eligibility standards for incoming freshmen and a greater emphasis on academics during Brand’s tenure as president.

No surprise to us that female athletes outperformed their male counterparts, 88 percent to 72 percent.  The only women’s sport to score lower than 79 percent was bowling at 74 percent (better hit those books bowlers). Women’s basketball came in at 83 percent under NCAA guidelines.

The three biggest men’s sports — football, basketball and baseball — all failed to top 70 percent in the NCAA report (those players better hit the books as well).

Walter Harrison, chairman of the committee on academic performance, believes next year’s rate will show even more progress and he offers congratulations to all student-athletes for proving the critics wrong.

‘09 Mountainboard Season Wrap-up

(Ed. Note: Pretty Tough Team Rider Melissa (Becker) Ponce de Leon is a pro mountainboarder with multiple U.S. Championships. Here is her account of her most recent competitive season.)

The 2009 Mountainboard Season has come to an end.

We had three major comps this summer and I had a goal of winning all of them.  Coming off of two Overall Championships last season really pushed me to up the level  this year.

In August we traveled to our first destination of the season in Kansas. The Twilight Showdown was an amazing event, the first ever night time event under the lights.  The comp took place in the middle of Kansas at Kaos which has to have one of the coolest boardercross and slopestyle courses in the country. I swept the competition winning the boardercross, freestyle and the women’s overall.

In September we hosted the Altitude Cup Mountainboard Challenge in Empire, CO. I won the boardercross, got 2nd in the big air and won the women’s overall.

The last event of the season was in early October (the 10th and 11th) in Colorado Springs, CO. The MBS Fall classic is always the final event  and this year we competed in the snow.  I swept the event winning the Big Air and Slalom events, as well as the Women’s Overall.

Fall Classic Results:
1st-Melissa Ponce de Leon
2nd-Emily Smith-Zurawski
3rd-Ari Coats

I’m really happy with how the season went and along the way I had the chance to teach 12 people how to Mountainboard. Another amazing season without major injury is always a good season so I’m grateful.

The snow is here in Summit County, CO now and I will be training on my snowboard for the next few months. Not sure what the next season will bring yet, so stay tuned.

Keramas: Women’s Champion crowned in Roxy Open Final

As expected, the action at the Quiksilver Open 2009 in Bali (presented by Jim Beam) was nothing short of hot and heavy.  The booming 4-6 foot sets that were blasting onto the lava bottomed reef of Keramas were launching big walls and meaty barrels.

After the Men had their share of the still glassy Keramas waves, the Roxy Open Women’s Division Finalists took to the water at just before 11:00 am to vie for the trophy and winners check of Rp 2.5 million.  The sun was blazing and the sand was burning, so the girls lost no time in getting out into the water and getting started.  Mina Nagasima from Japan got right to work, belting the lip after digging deep bottom turns to taking the lead and eventually the win.

Chasing her was Yasnyiar “Bonne” Gea from Nias, who weaved and carved her way to a second place finish over Gee Cormack from Australia.  Rounding out the podium was Royahe from Sumatra, who fell ill just before the start but gamely went out and gave it a go.

After receiving the winner’s check and trophy from Quiksilver’s Contest Director and ex-pro surfer Jake Paterson, Mina thanked him and said, “I’m so happy to have won this contest…it’s the first time for me to win here in Bali.  I come to Bali a few times every year because I really love surfing here, the beaches, and the people.  Now I really like winning the Roxy contest.  Thanks so much everybody!

Roxy Open Women’s Results
Mina Nagashima (Japan)
Yasnyiar “Bonne” Gea (Ind)
Gee Cormack (Aus)
Febri “Royahe” Rahmaningsih (Ind)

Wambach nominated for FIFA Award

Fresh off  her 101st career goal and a U.S. 1-0 win against Germany yesterday, it was announced that Women’s National Team and Washington Freedom forward Abby Wambach is the only American nominated for the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year Award.

Freedom teammate and French National player Sonia Bompastor is also on the list of ten nominees.  There are 23 nominees on the Men’s side, with both lists reduced to five in early December.  The winners will be announced at the FIFA World Player Gala on December 21st.

WOMEN NOMINEES: Nadine Angerer (Germany), Sonia Bompastor (France), Cristiane (Brazil), Inka Grings (Germany), Mana Iwabuchi (Japan), Simone Laudehr (Germany), Marta (Brazil), Birgit Prinz (Germany), Kelly Smith (England) and Abby Wambach (USA).

Go Abby!

Call to Action: Jefferson Award nominees

The Jefferson Awards are a prestigious national recognition system honoring community and public service in America.  They began in 1972 to create a Nobel Prize for public service. Today, their primary purpose is to serve as a “Call to Action for Volunteers” in local communities.

Did you know that athletes give back to their communities more than most groups?  Well, it’s true. Check out some of their random acts of kindness.

This month, voting begins for the prestigious national Jefferson Award for Outstanding Public Service by an Athlete.   A list of highly impressive nominees includes the following women:

Cheri Balwut – Paralympic Gold Medalist

Brandi Chastain – Soccer player

Lauren Fleshman - Long distance runner

Sara Hall – Runner

Mia Hamm – Soccer player

Lindsey Harding – Basketball player

Ana Ivanovic – Tennis player

Jelena Jankovic – Tennis player

Jessica Mendoza – Softball player

Angela Ruggiero – Hockey player

Kerri Walsh – Volleyball player

If you’re not already familiar with these inspiring women, you need to be. Click here to read about the incredible things these athletes are doing and to vote (by November 15th) for your favorite nominee.

Carve a Liberty Halloween pumpkin!

Halloween is upon us. Are you getting ready to deck out your place with cobwebs, witches and zombies? Well, get psyched because if you’re a WNBA fan the New York Liberty is ready to add to your holiday fun.

Check out the team’s very special custom Liberty Pumpkin Stencils. You can carve the WNBA team into your Halloween jack o’ lantern with four fabulous designs.

Instructions:

1) Cut out a lid in the top of the pumpkin large enough to fit your hand and a spoon inside.
2) Add a small notch in the back of the lid. The notch will remind you how the lid is positioned, allow smoke and heat to escape, and ensure that
the candle receives enough air to remain lit.
3) Scoop out the pulp and seeds. Retain the seeds for roasting.
4) Scrape the inside of the pumpkin in the area where you’ll be using the pattern, until that area is about 1 inch thick.
5) Trim and make small incisions in your pattern so that it lies flat on the face of the pumpkin. Tape the edges of the pattern to the pumpkin.
6) Transfer the pattern by poking small holes along the pattern lines with a drill tool or needle.
7) Remove the pattern.
8) Saw carefully along the dotted lines. Gently push the pieces through with your fingers.
9) Create a glow effect by scraping designs into the shell of your pumpkin with a melon baller, wood gouge or linoleum cutter.
10) Anchor a candle in the bottom of the pumpkin and light the candle.

You’re now ready to display your best jack-o’-lantern ever.

Let the good times roll

Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut isn’t the only place where you can find wheels a-turnin’ lately. Roller skating is as hot as ever and there are a number of roller sports that have novices and spectators alike spinning:

Roller Disco: Whether or not you even remember the Disco Days, you can pull on a pair of lycra jeans and lace up your skates. Hipster throwback events, such as Down & Derby bring hundreds of pairs of skates to club venues like LA’s Echoplex (18+), luring nightcrawlers to lace up and get their groove on. There’s even a Halloween version for fans of Thriller and Xanadu.

Roller Derby: Roller derby has long been acclaimed as an “alternative” sport , but with Whip It capturing the imagination of girls everywhere, it wouldn’t be surprising to soon start seeing high schools adding it to their varsity sport rosters. Offering a lot more than just the clichéd visual image of punk girls in fishnets and tattoos fighting their way around a rink, roller derby truly is a great feat of athletic prowess that screams almighty girl power. New Yorkers unable to score Yankees tickets can catch this weekend’s Gotham Girls Roller Derby double-header , when the Queens of Pain and Brooklyn Bombshells will be showing Seattle’s Sockit Wenches how it’s done.

Roller Hockey: Four-wheeled indoor roller hockey (a.k.a. Quad) may have gone the way of the roller skating waitress, but you may not have seen the last of it. Passionate players are trying to bring it back, and even if you retired your quads to the Salvation Army upon buying a pair of in-line skates, you’ll still be welcome in the rink.

(h/t to Trend Central)

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