Beijing, CHINA (September 20, 2008) – It was thrills, spills and chills (for those who didn’t realize this event was inside a giant freezer) at last Saturday’s Burton King of the Park competition, held at the Burton Qiaobo Mellow Park inside the Qiaobo Ice and Snow World, just outside Beijing.

Wanglei nose grab. Photo Xiao Ba / Burton

Fittingly, it was Burton rider and Chinese snowboard veteran Wanglei who was eventually crowned King of the Park, although his battle to first place wasn’t easy. Park regulars Xfox, Mingming, Magang and newcomer Cuiyang all firmly held their ground in a fierce competition that saw riders throw down a total of four judged runs - two on the kicker line, and two on the jib-line, with the points from their best run on each added together for their final score.

Ming Ming fsboard. Photo Xiao Ba / Burton

Not surprisingly, the park was in perfectly shaped condition, thanks to the Mellowparks.cn crew dedicating the previous day to many hours of shaping, testing and reshaping features. The end result was an indoor park that even an outdoor park wouldn’t kick out of bed, featuring two consecutive kickers, a downbox followed by a down rail, 3-stack of bonk-barrels, topped off with a 6m wide wallride on the jib-line.

Xfox was the first to impress the judges, after stomping a smooth FS air and BS 360 tail on his first run! However, this seemed to just motivate the competition to push harder, and it wasn’t long before Wanglei nudged ahead with a perfectly executed boned out BS 360 Indy, followed by a crowd-pleasing FS 540 melon! Other notable riders included newcomer and Qiaobo instructor Cuiyang, who impressed us with his gung-ho attitude and smooth landings. In the women’s division, Sasha (RUS), Yindi (CHN) and Mary (USA) all impressed us, each riding solidly catching big air off the kickers.

Wanglei fs5 melon. Photos Xiao Ba / Burton

With the jib-line portion up next, the speed slowed down and the tricks got more technical. Mellowparks’ Russian parkshaper Alexey earned one of the loudest crowd-cheers with a smooth-as-silk BS 180 on nosepress to bonk–180 off on the downbox, followed by a very stylish FS boardslide on the down rail. Coincidentally, it was Alexey’s girlfriend Sasha who earned an equally large cheer for her solid consecutive 50-50s on both the down box and rail! You go girl! Wanglei continued to impress, with an array of 270-on-270-offs on the down box, a nice boardslide on the down rail, and was the only rider to successfully utilize the bonk-barrels – with a 540-bonk! – once again proving he is the top rider in China.

With the competition complete, Wanglei was unanimously crowned this year’s Burton King of the Park! Second and third places (the ‘Prince’s’ of the park?) were well earned by Xfox and Cuiyang respectively. Sasha impressed us all by earning herself the ‘Queen of the Park’ title and we look forward to seeing her ripping up a real mountain this winter! Check mellowparks.cn for more pics of the action.