I was recently at the Snowboard World Championships in Spain, building the halfpipe (La Molina) and also the indoor Big Air which was held in Barcelona.

We were lucky that the snowmakers had made alot of  snow for the pipe as snow conditions were very lean over the whole mountain.  The snow was very sugary to work with which was a challenge as it builds up in the transition making it hard for the riders.  We were able to compact the sugar in the bottom of the pipe which made for a good finals pipe.

The Australians had a super solid performance winning both the mens and females divisions.

Womens and Mens Results Halfpipe

Indoor Big Air, in Barcelona sold out to 8,000 spectators.  It was the opening event for the World Championships, held at Saint Jordi.

We were lucky that the snow held very well indoors.  We were worried with how much heat would be generated indoors with the 8,00 people, lights and also the 18 degree celcius sunny weather outdoors.  The stadium was well equipped with air conditioning to keep the temperatures down and the snow in good condition.

There was no room to spare with the ramp and its huge size to fit it into an indoors stadium.  The height of the ramp was 30 meters and the height of the stadium roof was 31.5 metres.  The jump was 3 metres high and the table to clear was 14 meters long.  It wasn´t a big jump but being indoors and being restricted between the roof and walls I was not able to make it safely bigger.

Result BigAir

After the succesfull event last year, we were once again allowed to stop the traffic in Kuprun and build the jib event for the invited   urban skiiers from Europe.

We had a really short timetable to be able to prepare the event.  With the road closed from  miday Friday, till  Sunday, we had to build, hold the event and then clean up, so traffic could resume back to normal.  This included putting up and taking down scaffolding.

The set up included a 5 meter scaffold drop in ramp, to a 7 meter flat down rail or the option of a 6 meter perferatted pipe.  Both were set at 16 degrees gradient.  The extra challenge for the skiiers was the short landing space because of the tightness with Intersport Bründl´s party room!!  This is where the nights entertainment with local DJ´s took place to the early hours.

Five truck loads of snow from Großglockner and rails from Kitzsteinhorn helped make this event possible along with some of the local boys helping.

The winners were:  1st Roy Kittler (Germany) 2nd Markus Eder (Italy) 3rd Flo Geyer (Germany)

A big thanks to the local guys who helped build and shovel.

I look foward to even a bigger event next year………… I hope with snowboarders included aswell!!!

Alli

After being away from Austria for 6 months in New Zealand and Australia, I got back for only 2 days before I had to leave for London to build the Big Air jump for the Freeze Festival, held in London Battersea.

It was tough going, with the weather not playing its part to make the event easy.  The Polar boys had worked for 24 hours to make snow to build the jump, within 9 hours of the jump being shaped we had already lost 50 percent of it.  It rained and was windy the whole morning coming up to the time the Brits had their practice runs.  This unfortunatly stopped the training schedule for the FIS World Cup later in the afternoon.

That night the Polar Boys and the shaping crew worked around the clock again to make more snow to get the jump looking good for the FIS World Cup.  Luckily things improved weather wise, and by the time the practice started for the first heat of the event, things were in perfect shape with lots of snow and sun shine.

The field was made up of a strong field of riders, Marco Grilic (SLO), Petja Piroinen(FIN), Cavigelli Gien-Luca(SUI), Louri Podladtchikov(SUI) and the 17 year old Jamie Nicholls from the UK  who was very impressive.  The finals were made up of 12 riders. It was a strong field with many double cork 10´s being thrown.  There were also some double cork 12´s.  It was also nice as a spectator to see some styled out 5´s and 7´s.

Marco Grilic took the top money home with him, followed by Staale Sandbech(NOR) then Seppe Smits(BEL).

The highest Austrian was Michael Macho who fininsed in 6th place.The festival also included many DJ´s to keep the crowd entertained into the early hours of the morning, and signings by the freerider Jeremy Jones who was kept busy signing autographs and also showing his new movie Deeper.

Ja das ist mein Arbeitsplatz über dem Sommer 2010. Muss zugeben das ich es schlimmer erwischen könnte

Die letzten 2 Wochen waren bestimmt von viel Arbeit um ein, für die Burton NZ Open, und für die FIS JWM entsprechend gutes Set-up hinzustellen.

Es ist ein Wunder in welcher Größenordnung wir Obsakles hinstellen konnten, trotz akutem Schneemangels. Aber dank tage, ja wochenlangem zusammenschieben des Schnees aus Mulden und kleinen Gruben, über Disdanzen von etlichen hundert metern, haben wir es schließlich doch noch geschafft. In Europa wäre das aus Kostengründen undenklich. Maschinenstunden, Diesel, etc…

Alles in allem ist es uns gelungen, einen Park der Extraklasse (incl. Pipe) zu bauen, der seines gleichen sucht in der Südlichen Hemesphere.

So ist es auch nicht weiteres verwunderlich das sich zur Zeit die” cream de la cream”  des Snowboard und Freeskicircus die Klinke in die Hand drückt.

Rock on!

]]> http://www.parkshaper.com/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=38 0 http://www.parkshaper.com/wordpress/?p=15 http://www.parkshaper.com/wordpress/?p=15#comments Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:24:05 +0000 Alli http://www.parkshaper.com/wordpress/?p=15 Don`t leave home without them.

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Das ist meine Welt, und ich will sie dir gerne ein bisschen näher bringen….. drop in, denn

SnowboardWM 09 Korea Pipeshaper

hier werdet ihr immer wieder die neuesten Berichte über meine Reisen und Trips finden.

Alli
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