Oscar Wilde wrote, “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” All the riders in all the events of the Vans Triple Crown were there to ride - whether they wanted to be there or not- and, including those who made the “mistake” of winning, each rider came away with a different experience. Take Chad Otterstrom as an example. He woke up tired on the morning of the free style finals and told a friend he didn’t even feel like competing. His “not feeling like competing” resulted in a 4th place positioning.

Little 11-year-old Jed Anderson sat at the top of the park with his parents. Before his run in the qualifiers, he stepped off the packed snow and into the trees to relieve himself. Was it tension of the day or just time to go? Later, in the pipe finals, the wind was so strong that as he rode the pipe he was literally in a white wave of snow. At the bottom, blown to bits, he still had a huge smile on his face, even before the announcer said he would get a re-run. His experience that day, though it did not result in placing, call that a mistake if you like, was still a lesson in running with the “big boys.”

Fabienne had a harder time of it, probably a larger lesson for her and certainly more experience. During the finals she launched off the second jump and cleared the landing. Realizing she was going down, she rolled down the windows as fast as she could, only to still land very hard and get a concussion. She thought her name was Amanda for a while there.

Leslee Olson, always with a smile on her face, later told me that she was happy with her 10th place. She had just come from school in Oregon and the competition was her first time riding in awhile.

The Triple Crown, and snowboarding in general, is like a huge math equation. You have a rider with X amount of talent and ability; add that to Y which is the weather and the condition of the park/pipe, and Z which is the condition of the rider that day, both mentally and physically. The result is E, the experience, which, maybe isn’t always a mistake. Is there such a thing as a mistake in riding? The pros are really good at what they do, but still there are a lot of factors in their performances at any one time. The Vans Triple Crown was a bunch of good riders coming together, even those who didn’t make it past the qualifiers, who gave it their best shot. I was really struck by how real each of them are. Seeing them in the videos is different from being with them before, during and after a competition. They are people who are Awesome at what they do.