New Zealand's Mitch Brown and Australia's Torah Bright were crowned men’s and women’s halfpipe champions in the fifth annual TTR Five Star Burton NZ Open at Snow Park NZ on Sunday.

Brown is the first New Zealander to take the prestigious halfpipe title in the history of the competition. He was the highest scoring rider in the semi-finals with his top-to-bottom combination of tricks, the most technical run of the semis.

Going into the finals, his first run was not up to his previous standard, putting him in seventh place. In his second run, with weather setting in with wind and poor visibility causing others to give up, he kept going, moving up into third. Saving the best until last, it was his final run that put him into first place, featuring a frontside 900 followed by backside 540, frontside 1080, Haakon flip, frontside air backside 900 to an Allyoop inverted 540.

The run scored him 93.25, putting him clearly ahead of second place winner, Scotty Lago (USA) with 88.0. Brown's first ever TTR Five Star title secures him 850 TTR Ranking points and moves him straight into 12th position on the TTR World Snowboard Tour Ranking List.

“Mitch was on fire, right from training in the morning,” said Ste’en Webster, assistant head judge. “His qualifying runs were a bit of an eye-opener for the rest of the field. It’s great to see Kiwi success at this competition.”

Lago had the highest amplitude of the day, getting monster height out of the pipe but his run was not as technical as Brown’s although he did take out best men’s trick. Ryo Aono (JPN) took third with another huge and technical run.

Lago is performing exceptionally so far this season. With his fourth Top 10 finish at TTR Five Star level he overtakes Mason Aguirre (USA), who was first after winning the Slopestyle format but only finished 14th in the pipe, and is now leading the TTR World Snowboard Tour until it moves on to the second high level Southern Hemisphere event, the TTR Four Star Garnier Fructis Australian Open, starting on the 21st of August at the Perisher Blue Ski Resort in New South Wales, Australia.

Bright, the current TTR Women's World Snowboard Tour Champion 0607, was in top form to take not only the women’s halfpipe title but also best trick with a switch backside 540, which was the last hit of her winning run.

The run featured a backside five, air to fakie, cab720, frontside 540, backside 360 finishing with the switch BS5. The entire run was extremely well executed with every hit featuring a grab. Her early season victory at this prestigious event moves her directly into the TTR Women's Top 5 with just two results under her belt. She was the only rider able to break the full USA domination in the Men's and Women's TTR Top 5.

Last year’s winner, Kelly Clark (USA), finished second despite getting the highest amplitude in the women’s field, as Bright’s technical aspect stepped above Clark’s amplitude. With her second Five Star podium position in this season's TTR Women's World Snowboard Tour she is now leading with just 24.11 TTR ranking points ahead of Hana Beaman (USA), who did not compete in this halfpipe event.

Manuela Pesko (SUI) took home third with a good spin combination of threes, fives and sevens and enters the TTR ranking list 0708 with her first result of the season at position 19.

Event organiser, Reuben Yeoman said the event showed New Zealand snowboarding was now a definite force to be reckoned with on the world stage.

“This year’s open was a huge success, especially considering the weather conditions thrown at us,” he said. “One thing that really came through is New Zealand riders are matching it on a world level. It’s not just the big names such as Mitch Brown and Juliane Bray but there’s a real depth of talent that showed itself during the Burton Open.”