By Adryan Roane Ritter

Today’s Snowboard Superpipe Final marked the finale of the first stop of the Winter Dew Tour. The sun broke and shined bright for the first time in weeks here in Breckenridge, Colorado, a sign for what was to come when the six leading ladies of Superpipe dropped in for their Final runs. Taking advantage of the rays and coming out on top are the first Women’s Superpipe Podium winners: Gretchen Bleiler, Kelly Clark and Elena Hight, respectively.

After yesterday’s Preliminaries, there wasn’t much doubt the friendly rivalry between Kelly Clark and Gretchen Bleiler would push the competition in terms of amplitude and trick complexity. Kelly dropped into her first run with an absolutely huge indy which she followed up with a clean backside 7 and front 5 combo. She rounded it out at the end with a frontside 9 and sailed into the early lead with an 86.75.

Gretchen played it too safe her first run and, come the second heat, she was sitting in second behind Kelly by a 15-point margin at 71.25. Undaunted, however, Gretchen launched into her second run with a gigantic, crowd-pleasing crippler and one of the slickest frontside 900s of the day. Only Kelly Clark was left to best Gretchen’s now-first-place score of 90.25, and Gretchen held her breath as it was announced that Kelly's second run — in which she threw a frontside 9 and huge indy — earned a mere 80.50. Gretchen raised her arms in triumph and reached for the obligatory hugs from fans, friends, and competitors alike.

“It feels amazing,” Gretchen said. “I had a rough couple of weeks of riding and I've been fighting through it. All the girls were tearing it up, so it could have been anyone’s game,” The Colorado local said a bit after the celebrating calmed down. Gretchen earned herself 100 points towards her first overall Dew Cup and will be a definite one to watch for in the next two stops at Mt. Snow, Vermont and Northstar-at-Tahoe, California.

Rounding things out with a third-place finish, Elena Hight shook up the pack by out-riding the lead qualifier and favorite to podium, Hannah Teter, who she edged out for third by a 3.25 point-lead. Elena, who grew up in surfing in Kau’i and now lives in South Lake Tahoe, California, took her board skills to the snow today, launching clean frontside and backside 900s, not to mention a super-stylized nose grab — one of the most fun tricks we saw today. In the end, however, her amplitude wasn't as lofty as Gretchen and Kelly and Elena sat in third with a second run score of 82.00.