NanShan Open Finalists Announced!

Today the sun was shining and the 30 snowboarders in this year’s qualifying round for Asia’s largest snowboard competition, the 8th Red Bull NanShan Open, killed it today.

There were some rough falls and one almost injury, but everyone came out OK and the judges were all thoroughly impressed with the amount of talent in this year’s competition.

Due to the windy conditions, the riders were given three chances with the best of the three runs to determine the twelve finalists for tomorrow’s competition. But with Tobias Karlsson’s injury severity undetermined at the time of the announcements, the judges bumped up China’s very own Wang Lei into the finalist round.  Hooray!

Here’s a rundown of the NanShan Open’s finalists:

1. David Bertschinger K (DBK)  from Switzerland- Bib #2
2. Juuso Laivisto from Finland – Bib #23
3. Nick Brown from New Zealand – Bib #10
4. Atsushi Iskikawa from Japan – Bib #1
5. Sergey Lapushkin from Russia – Bib #12
6. Erik Botner from Norway – Bib #3
7. Nick Hyne from New Zealand – Bib #11
8. Tobias Karlsson from Sweden – Bib #16
9. Yongho Lee from Korea – Bib #20
10. Matti Kinnunen from Finland – Bib #9
11. Werner Stock from Austria – Bib #19
12. Marc Swoboda from Austria – Bib #8
13. Wang Lei from China – Bib #18

Check out the Mellowparks website for all the top photos from today’s event here.

Tomorrow will be a great day to come out to enjoy the fresh powder, get in some good runs and watch the biggest snowboarding competition in Asia this year!

And don’t forget, the official competition after-party is this coming Tuesday, January 12th @ Club Vics.