The Uninvited and Woodward Park City knew putting on the fourth annual Uninvited Invitational would be challenging due to the poor snow season. But the two organizations powered through anyway, seeking to provide the opportunity of a lifetime for event staff and 65 snowboarders from around the worl d.  On Saturday afternoon during the competition finals, a storm blew rain and lightning into Park City, delaying portions of the event. The Uninvited moved forward once more, wrapping up the four-day long display of women’s snowboarding and handing out $60,000 in prizes.  Japanese teenager Himari Takamori was the big winner Saturday, winning the competition and its best trick prize, netting $17,000. Takamori’s best trick was a back tail 270 off the course’s highest feature, where she jumped and twisted backward onto the feature’s railing and jumped and twisted back forward onto the landing. Milano Cortina Olympian Jessica Perlmutter finished in second place, taking home $11,000. The Uninvited Invitational handed out prizes through fifth place and for other awards such as the YETI Rookie, Style Boss and Dark Horse.  The Uninvited founder Jess Kimura, a snowboarding legend herself, was thrilled with being able to put the event on and support generations of women’s snowboarders. She believes the organization and Woodward can continue to grow the event in future years. Kimura said the crowd support on Saturday was the best it’s ever been for the competition, despite the poor weather and lightning delays. Kimura said she’d worried attendance wouldn’t be stellar due to the weather and Woodward having been closed to public skiers and snowboarders for the season. “It went awesome, really starting with our welcome party,” Kimura said. “We pull out all the stops.” She continued, “We have a ton of programming surrounding the event itself to make sure that everyone’s getting the most out of it. Even the girls who were there just as photographers or videographers get mentored by our staff.” The Uninvited Invitational held opening and closing parties, and a professional networking event last week.  “It’s funny because this wasn’t the best snow year for the area, but we ended up having the best course we’ve ever had,” Kimura said. “I think because we, Woodward, acted really proactively. … Because there was less snow this year, everyone was more on top of making sure that everything was pushed into the right place and consolidated.” Kimura credited Ben Block, the course designer, and Woodward’s park and snowcat crew for helping get the event up and running. Block’s rusty-looking features were among the snowboarder’s favorites. One of two rusty features had the railing off which Takamori threw her best trick, and the other was at the bottom of the course, and the competition referred to it as “Nicolas Cage,” handing out $2,000 to New Zealand snowboarder Stefi Luxton for the trick she threw off of it.  “There were a lot of highlights,” Kimura said. “Himari winning best trick and the event, you have to be so far ahead of everyone to do that because the reason we have all these awards is because we do want to spread out the prize money. Often the person that wins does not get the best trick award because that is one person that sacrificed the rest of the contest just to battle to get their best trick.” She continued, “The girl that won the Stoke award, that was her first time leaving Japan ever. … Every time she dropped in, she was almost laughing the whole time because she was having so much fun. She didn’t really understand the competition or anything, but she made finals and ended up winning an award, so that was really cool.” The competition had snowboarders ages 14-38. Kimura still loves giving these women a space to showcase their skills and be highly compensated for it.  “The first one was at Woodward Tahoe,” Kimura said. “It’s our third year doing it here, and I feel like our partnership grows with Woodward every year. … I think we’re going to keep growing it to be bigger and better. This year we had snowmobile laps for the riders so they didn’t have to hike every single day.” Kimura said that she was pleasantly surprised by the fan turnout, given the poor weather and Woodward having already closed for the season to the public. She said she ran into fans from as far as Tennessee, North Carolina and New York last week. She believes The Uninvited Invitational is becoming a “destination event.” “It’s been fun to be around such an excited crowd,” Gus Cline of Salt Lake City said. “I just love all the stuff.” Jake Herman of Michigan said the same: “Everybody’s throwing down and having fun, even though the weather is a little shady today. … I’d definitely come back. Super sick set up.” Kimura would like to get the prize pool to $100,000 and beyond in future years. As The Uninvited Invitational continues to grow, they believe they’ll continue to get even higher-level snowboarders to compete. Perlmutter finished in sixth place at the Games in big air.  “I’m hoping that we’re going to be able to get more funding and bigger sponsorships,” Kimura said. “That brands outside the snowboard industry are going to see the value of being affiliated with this event, and that’s going to help us be able to push the prize purse through the roof.” She continued on about women’s snowboarding, “It already has gone to a place where I would have never imagined it would have gone in my lifetime, and it’s happening even faster than I can keep up with, so I’m excited to see what’s to come.” The post The Uninvited Invitational wraps up Saturday at Woodward Park City appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less