Sydney, Sunday 17th July 2011 – Jye Kearney, 18, from Jindabyne NSW has won the 6th Annual Burton Cattleman’s Rail Jam – the country’s biggest rail event – in a showdown between Australia’s best rail riders at Mt Buller last night.
Jye took out the title with a near flawless session that saw him stand out above the other 16 competitors on a level all of his own. Jye, who’s been competing in the event since he was 14, finally took the crown and became the first rider from NSW to ever win the title. His landed tricks are too many too mention, but included a number of backside 270’s on and off, a gap to cab 270, a frontside 270 and a 50-50 transfer from the top close-out rail to the stair rail on both sides of the stair set – something never done on both sides in the event before.
“I’m so stoked. What a night – four thousand big ones – I had so much fun,” Jye said after the big cheque was handed to him by MTV’s Erin McNaught.
The Best Trick of the night was awarded to Tim Laidlaw; the Mt Hotham local dropped a technical trick on the infamously difficult outside double-kink rail; backside 50-50, 180 to switch 50-50 to half cab out.
Second place was Mt Buller favourite and veteran Cattleman’s Rail Jam competitor Mitch Williams who consistently threw technical, smooth and stylish tricks including a switch nose press, cab 270 gap and switch blunt 270.
Third place was another cross-border infiltrator to Mt Buller, Pete Long, the Thredbo veteran, whose skateboard-influenced style and different approach made him a crowd favourite with tricks like a frontside 180 switch 50-50 to full cab out and a number of huge gap airs to the flat that included a stalefish to nosebonk of the middle rail.
For the rest of the field, which was dominated by young riders and fresh faces,they made the most of their opportunity to impress by attempting lots of “never-been-done’s”, like Greg Murray who all but stomped a 50-50 from the top close-out rail to gap down to front board on the stair rail.
“With the Cattleman’s rail opening up just once every year for this event, we decided to build an exact replica feature which was opened in Mt Buller Park on Friday. With a full day to experiment on the replica the riders really pushed the level of riding to new limits and put on a great show for the crowd”, said Paul Colby, Burton Brand Manager.
MTV ensured the fun didn’t end with the Cattleman’s Rail Jam, presenting the official after-party to wrap up MTV Snow Jam 2011. This year MTV Snow Jam took the form of a 3-day party tour, kicking off in Melbourne with a launch party featuring Lil Jon and culminating with a bang at Mt Buller’s Kooroora Hotel last night. Sydney DJ duo, Softwar warmed things up before Muscles took the stage to turn the heat up another notch for the crowd, ensuring this party remains one of the mosttalked about on the Australian snow calendar.
