Nike ACG Team Blog : News from the snowbard team

"Hey! I have just moved over to Mayrhofen after having a month in Chile this summer which was amazing. I have been riding here the last 3winters in the Zillertal Valley and it has been great fun. I have been riding with Roman Rohrmosser quite a bit and a couple of times with Rudi Kröll and the rest of the time with the British guys that are out here. I always see Mike Hauser and the other local riders running laps in the park as well. At the moment I am sorting things out for the winter and riding the Hintertux glacier a bit. Hopefully for everyone the snow will start dumping soon. peace"

ZOE GILLINGS

Zoe kicked off the season in style by scoring 4th place in the SBX World Cup in Argentina which means she's now qualified for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Congrats Zoe!! Mid-December she will be putting her training into practice by getting back on the FIS World Cup circuit. We’ll keep you updated with Zoe’s results, and if all goes to plan, she’ll finish the season with a top 3 world ranking position

DAN WAKEHAM

After training in Saas Fee, Dan came to London to compete at the LG Freeze at Battersea Power Station in October. He's now out in Breckenridge, USA where he'll be focusing on the some half pipe training before the next FIS comp. A good run should see him secure his place in the 2010 Olympics.

PADDY GRAHAM

Paddy was also on his home turf representing the UK at the London Freeze Big Air. He made it to Finals and despite pulling a super smooth 9, just lost out to Patrick Hollaus. He also made time for a trip to the ski show and a spot of shopping in Nike Town. He's off to Brecknridge for some hard core training and early season filming with Aestivation film crew.   Look out for Paddys' trick tips in Fall Line Mag [issues 76,77 & 78] www.fall-line.co.uk

NODDY GOWANS

Despite being based in the UK these days, Noddy still gets a large slice of the action. He joined some of the Nike crew on a press trip to Moab, Utah. Camping, Desert, Hiking, Mountain Biking...Nods was in his element. As ever, Nods has a plan - he's off  on another backcountry trip to Canada with photographer Yves Garneau and there's even talks of an adventure to Sochi in Russia.

MURRAY BUCHAN Having ended last season as bearer of the British Halp Pipe Championship title, Muz has continued to stomp it - competing at the London Freeze he won the Battle of Britain (oh - and won himself a 32" Flat screen LG TV - which he gave to his Dad...bless!)

MARK HARRIS Apart from takin time out for a few essential mountain bike sessions and surf trips, Mark has been working hard this summer to raise funds for another season. He's now at in Zermatt taking advantage of the early snowfall and getting some serious pow

ALLY WATSON Meet the latest member of the Nike ACG UK Team: Ally is a 24 year old Scottish Freerider. He's just flown out to Mayrhofen with some of the UK pros, where he'll be based for the season, along with Nike ACG Austrian team member Roman Rohrmoser.

The team are revving up and up to various activities throughout the globe in preparation for the coming winter.

As reported in the London Freeze update the guys did really well and quite a few of them are moving on to the next stage in Stockholm for the King of Style.

On his way to Stockholm Ulrik has been over in Hintertux for some photo shoots but unfortunately the weather worked against him and they didn’t manage to get what he was looking for, but nonetheless he is looking forward to the next contest and will hopefully finish even higher up.

Henning has not had it so lucky so far in his return from injury season as there has not been much snow in his local resort. However it is now open and he is looking forward to getting some shredding done as soon as he has recovered from his 40 degree fever.

As per usual Roy is on it early in the season and has already won 2 contests. In the Kaunertal Opening he was voted rider of the day, check out the link www.kaunertal.opening.at and youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMP-evNELLs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st7CgH531A8

Here’s a pic of him hitting the kicker

It was also prodcasted on RTL (German TV)

After Kaunertal Roy then went to Modena in Italy and did a rail jam there and won against Tom Wallisch with a 450 in blind 2 out. This victory meant that he won a spot for the Champs Open in Crans Montana this Winter! This was followed up by the Monsterpark Invitational in Les Diablerets. However you can’t win every contest so he let someone else take the glory…

Eva Walkner is one of the new members of the team from Austria but she has been having a pretty slow start to the season as it is too warm in Austria (up to 24 degrees recently) - so she still goes riversurfing when she can. However she has done some filming for a report about her on Austrian TV and now she is training hard and feeling stronger and stronger in preparation for her projects this winter. Up next is another shoot on the Kitzsteinhorn next weekend (snow dependent). Check her out in the second report on this webpage - http://www.inaction.at/in-sport.8.0.html

Mirjam’s road to recovery continues and she is getting as much riding in as possible and is now riding the less intense features in the park to build her knee up steadily and she is hoping to be over in the states for a couple of weeks to train with the X-Games always at the forefront of her mind and being back on her level.

Paddy is also heading out to the states with a German crew and will hang out in Breckenridge for a couple of weeks. He returns for the Laax opening weekend and has promised a hot off the press blog and photos from what went down.

Sophie has started the season on fire with a podium finish in the Saas Fee World cup Half-pipe event. With only 18 months until the next winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010.

Sverre has been super busy this summer/fall. Although he had minor surgery ion his ankle in July he’s working out every other day in the gym.

At the same time he is renovating his house, and his girlfriend Hanna and dad Frank helping out. One weekend every year it's moto cross weekend at his friend’s farm: check out the shot below:

Last week he went to New York on vacation, and bought a camera. So now hopefully he can take some sick shots this coming winter, and also with a great zoom that he needs for scooping his lines on the mountain.

This Friday the Swedish ski film production from Free Radicals had a premiere in Stockholm for their last film, "Satisfaction Guaranteed".

Sverre had the cover (portrait) and the back (backflip) on the dvd. Nice...

Also Sweden’s biggest rap star Petter made Sverre a personal song for his section in the film, that's pretty sick!!

This Wednesday he is going to Kaunertal for a Gore Tex event, along with Kaj Zackrisson they will have a presentation there for the key accounts from Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

From mid December he will be based at skilodge Engelberg for a month, to get ready for the first world tour event in Sochi Russia. By the way, Rich has got a wildcard as well.

Rich is stoked to have been invited on the tour without doing the qualifying series. I think a lot of it comes down to the insane riding he did last year on the Swatch Freeride contest where the top 20 athletes in the world toured Europe in a bus for a few weeks looking for the perfect conditions. On one occasion Rich did a big 180 off a cliff and landed going about 80km/h switch and rode out for a few turns until it all became too much but Swatch were well stoked and Rich has been taking big steps ever since. Rich’s new sweetspot (number 27) is also online now and you can see a similar 180 there. Gary and Rich headed over to Golden last March to film in some epic conditions and explored the backcountry on ski-doos with varying success and a lot of digging – tricky business the old sleds and powder combo.

Andreas is coming along well on the road to recovery after he injured his knee at the Freestyle.ch. Doctors say he is 5 weeks ahead of schedule and should be back on his skis in December so fingers crossed. Fellow Norwegian, Thomas Doelplads has been getting some urban riding in with some street rails when they were lucky enough to get some snow in the city last week. Then he headed over to a local mountain bike track which has drops, jumps and wall-rides and he got some pretty tasty shots.

Rudi Kroell has been hard at it already with an 8^th place in the Kaunertal Opening, training and shooting on the Hintertux glacier and a wicked weekend at the Horsefeathers Pleasure Jam last weekend. He said the field at the pleasure jam was like a TTR 6 star event – it went off but unfortunately he didn’t make the final. He also has had a small piece in an Austrian Magazine called the Tirolerin, always good to get that first shot out of the way in a season.

In France Mati and Laurent have been getting ready. Laurent has been busy planning his season with Sweetspots coming up both in base jump and ski, some trips with salomon and helping organise the freeride session in La Clusaz while mati, who is now based in Chamonix has been watching the snow fall and planning his secret idea in the crevasses.

Gary has been globe trotting again, he has been chilling in Tahiti with his family for the last couple of weeks getting some surfing in before starting the hectic season which begins with the Grand Prix in Breck in December...hopefully this is Gary’s year to pick up his first major contest win!

So that’s it for the moment from the team but I will keep you updated as things happen.

Cheers

Graham

Well the london freeze has come and past and what a weekend it was. The top riders from around the world came to compete in the first UK big air contest since the infamous Board-X and also for their listening pleasure the likes of Cypress Hill and The Enemy headlining.

Rich Permin did a sterling job and finished third showing his usual class and style and massive airs. The title was taken by PK Hunder who double cork 10'd his way through every round stomping like a machine - he is going to kill the X-Games this year.

For a full event report check out - http://www.newschoolers.com/web/content/news/news_id/2314/ 

On the snowboard world cup side Ulrik was representing ACG and Norway and did a sterling job. He was lying in second place after the qualifications where he stomped a perfect back 9 rodeo and a cheeky 1260 (but with a hand drag). Going into the final he was trying the same combo but cleaner if possible, but unfortunately he landed them but just short on the stompage and finished in his highest world cup position so far of 7th.

The rest of the crew had a great time riding and hanging in London, some of them over here for their first time.

At the same time, Mirjam, Mati and Theo were over in Les 2 Alpes for the Mondial du ski. The park was in good condition although these days there is no pipe due to lack of snow. The evenings were as mental as usual with a good time guarantee, the mondial du snowboard was last weekend and again a great success.

Next on the cards for some of the riders is the next inner city big air stop at the King of Style in Stockholm where Rich will endeavour to defend his title.