Nike ACG Team Blog : News from the snowbard team

Hey everybody

just wanted you all to know that i had been in Austria for the weekend to take part in the Newschoolpicknick(one of the biggest comps in whole europe after the european open...) and the X-Override!

everything started of on friday, when we started our trip in Schönried(near by Gstaad, Switzerland).
there was a huge snowstorm and about 20cm of snow on the highway, the traffic was crazy and we already needed 2hours 
then usually to get to Bern, so we decided to go back home and ski some pow, but when we had been home already i got a call from a friend and he said that it´s supposed to be good weather i Austria and no big snowstorms at all....

so we turned after 1,5h of an detour and went to St. Gallen to pick up Henrik Harlaut and Kalle Leinonen....
we arrived in Austria at 2am in the night....after good 13h of driving....luckily the comp on saturday was just starting at 11am....


after 1h of training things started of and everybody got 2runs, and out of the 2 the best one counts, i made it to semis with a smooth sw7 mute to tail, while everybody else was busting sw 10s...
at 7pm we came back up to take the training...the kicker was just 14m of flat but really poppy and a huge, step landing, so everybody could go really really big as u can see in the picture...

16people had made it to semi finals! the concept stayed the same like in qualis, and 8people advanced to finals...
i got 7th with a sw10 mute to opposite tail, which i just learned in training...everybody else was going huge and busted super stylie sw10s...

the finals went down as a head to head system were the 8th had to go againts the 1st, 7th/2nd, 6th/3rd and so on...but now everybody got 3runs, a technical one, a style one and one you were able to choose...

i had to go against Thomas Hlawitschka out of germany who did huge and really good looking sw misty 10s!
so the first round was the technical one and Thomas put down his sw 10 perfectly and i did my sw 10 too, the style jump had to decide...Thomas went for a smooth bio5 but struckelt in the air and i nailed my 5blunt tail perfectly.
Now Thomas went for another bio5 but overrotaed a little bit in the landing, so i advanced to super Finals, as well as Henrik Harlaut, Kalle Leinonen and Oscar Sherlin...

Due to time proplems every rider just got 1 more run, so everybody was trying to do his best to get a new suzuki...
I was first and put down my sw 10 mute to tail better then ever before, next was Kalle, who did a huge sw misty 12 but missed the grab and slightly landed on his ass, Henrik did a sw14(with 16years...) but unfortunately he put his hands down and missed his grab too,
now Oscar dropped in and put down a huge perfectly tweaked sw 10 nose mute.....which was putting him into first place, right before me...

but everybody, especially me, was really stoked about the comp and the results.....

8th Pekka Hyysalo Fin
7th Martin Misof   Aut
6th Thomas Hlawitschka Ger
5th Russ Henshaw Aus
4th Kalle Leinonen Fin
3rd Henrik Harlaut Swe
2nd Roy Kittler Ger
1st Oscar Sherlin Swe

now everybody  was going to the afterparty, exept of us because we had to go to kitzsteinhorn for the x-override a friend had invited us too....
after 2more hours of driving we arrived there and finally good some sleep....

I had to get up really early on sunday, cause training was starting at 8.30am

Sadly the weather was not on our site and the organisation had to change the format after one kicker run to a rail session
Everybody got a good session and had fun even the weatehr wasn´t to good...and in the end the top three had been:

3rd Szczepan Karpiel Pol
2nd Patrick Hollaus Aut
1st Roy Kittler Ger

unfortuneatly we also had to leave right after the comp to drive another 8h back home, because i destroyed the wheel of my car on thursday, so we had to take the car of my girlfriends parents company, and we had to bring it back until monday morning because of work...
so we were not able to party at all but still had a good time and some funny driving hours

We’re not far off the end of the Sweetspot shoot in Golden and things are still going well. Since the original update Rich Permin and Seb Leon have rolled into town. They had a pretty perfect start with bluebird for the majority of their first day. Since then though it’s been a mixed bag with the sun breaking through from time to time.

Our first day as a full crew was pretty eventful. After a bit of a late start (thanks to more bags being lost in transit) we pushed well into the late afternoon as energy levels were still high. Both Gary and Rich were drooling over some great chutes and a natural hip we found late on. On the way back down for the day the tail end of the group found a local guy who’d obviously been charging a bit too hard on the lower levels. Boris and Soaper ended up having to dig his sled out of the forest (and by all accounts the guy himself). Boris ended up getting tired of all the digging and, like a true pro, he ended up filming the latter part of the rescue mission. Look out for the eagerly anticipated release ‘when snowmobiling goes wrong’ from Blank Paper

We have been venturing deeper and deeper into the wilderness though and uncovering some more sweet zones. Looking up at some of the climbs we’ve been doing to move into new bowls you’d think they were vertical. I can’t say enough how mind blowing the scenery is; for the majority of us, the first snowmobiling experience is going to be super hard to top.

Back to the riding though, Rich is absolutely slaying everything he’s going after. 2 days ago he dropped at least a 30ft cliff that the snowmobiles only just managed to get him up to. Yesterday he took on 2 sweet drops, nailing a 180 on one and getting beaten up after a 5 off the other. The landing was super flat and his knee opened his chin up pretty nicely. 7 stitches for $700 – ouch and ouch. Glad to say he’s all good now though

As for Gary – he’s loving the pow and put together a sick kicker off a wind lip yesterday that he rode a super floated f/s 3 off. It’s been great to see the 2 guys feeding off each other and pushing the other to go bigger.

Before I sign off I need to give big props to Brian, a guide who’s been with us since Rich arrived, as it’s his Birthday today. We’re heading over to session his mini ramp later and share a couple of cold ones.

Hey all- we’re 2 days into our Sweetspot shoot in Golden, BC with Blank Paper and Gary Zebrowski.

From the cluster of civilisation here we can look up to the peaks of Kicking Horse, the main focus for the holiday-makers in this area. Golden isn’t a resort though, if you want to ride around here you’ve got to trek. In our case that means snowmobiles and pushing into untouched terrain way up the valley.

We fire up the sleds in the morning and head a good 15 kilometres before we even stop to look around us. Up at this level the climbs get steep and the knack of hanging onto your sled becomes more of a necessity than a skill. I’m glad to say though that Gary seems born for this kind of stuff and he’s charging around looking for new zones to hit.

We spend the best part of the day moving through valleys and spotting new lines for Gary to shred. It’s unreal to be able to drop into a bowl which seems so remote from civilisation and then push further and further into the unknown. We’re spoilt to say the least and that includes our guides and new friends. Both Spencer and Soaper are not only essential to keep us working the right areas but are great company.

The weather has been on and off. A fair amount of snow fell through yesterday and into the night but left us with some great fresh today and cleared for odd windows of perfect conditions.

Rich Permin and Seb join us tomorrow… more updates to follow.

Jimmy

Its a busy time of year on the sweetspot campaign with Gary and Rich heading over to Golden in Canada to shoot with Blank Paper Productions in the backcountry. There is a lot of snow over there and they will be using sleds, dogs and perhaps heli if the conditions are right.

Striaght afterwards Sverre is heading over to Mica with Wink Inc to re-visit this amazing terrain and hunt for some more first descents. With just him, a filmer and a photographer its the dream trip, a private heli and untouched mountains.

Ulrik may also be getting in on the action up in Norway with the factor films crew as he attempts various different tricks in the backcountry. It should produce some interesting results and you never know what Ulrik will do (or if he will turn up) 

It was at Valmalenco (Italy)

Found a nice Review Clip of the Ästhetiker Wängl Tängl Jäm 2008 on Metho.TV:

http://stream.method.tv/?ch=00034&id=878

Have fun watchin

Rudi 

Dan Wakeham and Ben Kilner from the British World Cup Halfpipe Team wrapped up the 2007/2008 FIS World Cup season in style over the weekend when they competed and finished in 10th and 20th place in the final World Cup Halfpipe event in Valmalenco, Italy.


The British World Cup Halfpipe Team
Dan Wakeham ended his World Cup competition season on a real high over the weekend when he qualified into the top 12 men final in an impressive 9th place. Wakeham continued to push the limits in the final and stomped a perfect McTwist and massive air-to-fakie during his run to take 10th place overall. This is Wakehams best result in the World Cup circuit this year and places him 28th in the World standing.

Ben Kilner was also on top form and threw down a technical run with signature Kilner style to finish in a respectable 20th place. Coverage from the Valmalenco World Cup event including interviews with Dan and Ben will be aired on Channel 4 at 8am on Sunday 30th March, so make sure you check it out!

Dan and Ben along with the rest of the British Snowboard Teams will be heading out to compete at the BRITS 08, Laax Switzerland from the 29th March – 5th April and following on from the teams great European and Worldwide results and achievements this season standards are set to soar. For regular team news updates subscribe for FREE to the “Across the Board” newsletter at www.snowsportsgb.com

I skied well in Tignes, ended up 6th even though I had some crashes in the run, so the rest was great :-)

It means Im in for Verbier Xtremes, it will be held on saturday. It also means Im guaranteed a spot for the world tour next year, if I want..

Cheers S

Too bad it’s over! It was an amazing week!
This years Wängl Tängl got into new dimensions with one week of snowboarding, skating, art and parties!
Unfortunately we did have bad weather the first 4 days, so we didn’t get the training days we planned.
We had 2 Qualification days. On Thursday we had Kicker Line qualification and on Friday the Alternative Line qualification. Both points got added and the best 24 Riders advanced to the Final day on Saturday. It was such a high level at the qualification so I was really stoked to advance to the Final day.

Too bad we were not lucky enough to have bluebird on Saturday. Instead we had clouds, hard landings and bad sight. But we pulled the Final through anyway. So we started up with the Kicker line. I had a really nice run with Cab 9, Bs 7 and Fs 7 Tail which I stomped far down near to the K-Point of the landing.
After that everyone had one run on the Alternative Line which I stomped all including Cab 180 to 50-50 to Bs 180 off on the Surfboard rail on the Suzuki, double handed Nosegrab and Fs Alley Oop on the Quarters, backflip over the little Jump and a Bs Air over the right corner. I didn’t slam once in my runs so I was pretty stoked.

Because of the weather we decided in a Riders Meeting that we don’t do any more runs. No more Kicker runs because it was concerned to dangerous and no more Alternative runs because it would have been unfair to get a better Alternative run but no change for the other riders to get a better Kicker run.

Those two runs together made the Final result of the Wängl Tängl 2008 which put me in the 5th place in a contest with one of the highest International Level of the TTR Contests.
I’m really stoked about that result and it also pushes me in the TTR World Ranking:

Out of the TTR press release:
“Rudi Kroell (AUT), who finished 5th at the Wängl Tängl, took a huge leap in the TTR rankings, moving into the Swatch TTR Top 25.”

So the Wängl Tängl pushes me into place 24 of the TTR World Ranking, which makes me not only the best Austrian but also the best ACG Rider for the moment!

Eeeeöööööhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Greets from the Chillertal
Rudi


Links:

Ästhetiker -http://www.aesthetiker.com/tour/2008/snowboard.php

Hot-Zone.TV - http://www.hot-zone.tv/content/12.0.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=867&tx_ttnews[backPid]=4&cHash=5ce0f31e96

TTR - http://www.ttrworldtour.com/news/news-detail/article/andreas-gidlund-takes-it-all-home-at-5-star-aesthetiker-jam-waengl-taengl.html

TTR Wängl Clip - http://stream.ttrworldtour.com/mov.php?mid=146&aid=146&cat=00001&br=256

Some breaking news from the weekends contest in the States, sophie rodriguez took 5th place in the world superpipe championships, her first major contest in the states this year. It was a world class field which was riding so congratulations and hopefully she can keep up the momentun for the upcoming events, the US Open and world junior champs.

Gary took 13th place in the mens contest and is looking to break into the top 10 for the US Open.