The brainchild of Adam Koehler, this battle is designed to take the epic ski pictures from or of our collegiate skiers, and put them head to head for the all of the @thencwsa Instagram followers to decide the winner! Once a winner is decided, the next Photo Battle Friday will feature the current champion versus a new contestant to see if a new champion will be crowned or the current champion keeps his or her winning streak alive! You can see all the Photo Battles and the champions on our ncwsa.com Photo Battle Friday page!
Want to be in the next battle?
Is your photo epic enough? Submit your photo by tagging @theNCWSA and #NCWSAPhotoBattle on Instagram, or submit though email at photos@ncwsa.com and include your Instagram handle so we can tag you! We will try to hold a new #NCWSAPhotoBattle each Friday on the NCWSA’s Instagram story, and the world will choose the winner!
Inaugural Battle – 4/20/2018
Our inaugural battle pitted a photo by Hannah Kranz (@hannahbkranz) posted to the San Diego State University Water Ski & Wakeboard Team’s Instagram featuring Jess Adams (@jessicadamz) jumping in her graduation gown against Matt Gaebe’s (@gattmaebe24) photo of UCLA water skier Madeline Brooks (@madelinegrace129) ripping it on her slalom ski.
Our inaugural battle pitted two pictures of skiers from the NCWSA Western Region, and the battle was tight from the start. With a launch around 2pm CDT on Friday, the votes came in quick, and evenly spread between the two photos. After about 4 hours, with 170 votes, the photos were tied 85-85!
The votes kept coming, but the lead was never more than 10 votes apart for the entire competition. 6 hours in, the score was 49% jump, 51% slalom, but that evened out minutes later with the two options locking horns at 103 each, and the counts steadily grew from there always staying tied or within a vote or two of a tie.
This was closer than we could have ever predicted. Personally, as a yumper at heart, I thought Top was the clear winner, but noted the pure shred of Maddie Brooks slaloming. Checking at midnight, the votes were 117-118 Slalom…that is, until another vote evened the scored in front of my very eyes. Throughout Saturday morning, we saw votes staying close, but Bottom was maintaining the lead.
And the winner is…
At the final bell, the count was 277 votes in total, from across the world. With a small 7 vote difference, Matt Gaebe’s slalom ski shredding photo of Madeline Brooks took the win at a score of 142 to 135 (51% to 49%).
Congrats to photographer Matt Gaebe from Cal Poly and UCLA Water Ski’s Maddie Brooks on winning the first ever NCWSA Photo Battle Friday, and kudos to Hannah and Jessica for a fierce fight. We commend you both on high levels of gnar.
See You All at the Next Photo Battle Friday!
To those who voted, tune in this Friday for another battle! To all of our Instagram followers that did not vote or could not decide, next week get off the sidelines and choose your favorite! Don’t go far, we’ll see you Friday.
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