fight : Nike ACG Team Blog : News from the snowbard team

09/04/2008

Highlights Grandvalira Total Fight

13/04/2007

Rudi Kröll - Grandvalira Total Fight

Grandvalira Total Fight 07 – El Tarter, Andorra

28.03 – 03.04.2007

3* TTR

On the 28th of March I took the train to Munich to pick up Jens and his car to drive straight to Andorra. 22 hours later, after 14, 5 hours and 1400 km driving we arrived there the next day 8:00 AM in the morning. Pretty hard mission. I drove there with the Völkl guys Simon Schweiger, Quentin Robbins and Michi Stanschitz.

After sleeping till three we went up the mountain to check the park out. They didn’t have a lot of snow during the season but had heavy snowfall the week before the contest. They did a really good job and build a nice park. There were two different lines possible. The first line was through the pipe onto the two kicker combo and a straight to down box or double kinked rail. The second line leaded to the right to a 20 meter aiiirtime kicker onto a 15 meter gap step up jump into the landing of the first line’s first kicker. I loved to ride this line!

Qualifications Day:

The weather was a lot better then it was supposed to be. At 10:30 we had an hour of training and then the pre-qualification took place. I think the first 10 came to the invited riders to ride the qualification. I won the qualification with a fs 720 mute over the big kicker far down into the middle of the long landing. Then I did BS 180 melon over the gap jump, switch BS 720 over the last jump and 50-50 to frontside boardslide at the gap box. I was pretty stoked about the run. Unfortunately a few guys came short on the first kicker and also did Michi Stanschitz who won the Total Fight last year. He hurt his knee and couldn’t ride the final. Get better buddy!

Final Day:

The weather was not that nice that the day before. But it was ok to ride. First round was 25 people, two runs the better one counts. Then they did a cut to 16 guys. And at this point normally the Total Fight, what means KO System, starts. But because the bad weather was moving in and it already was a little late they decided to do 2 runs and the best counts. Too bad. Maybe next year.

My best run was cab 900 over the big kicker, BS 180 melon over the gap and switch BS 720 on the last kicker.

Results:

1. Jaakko Ruha FIN
2. Mati Radaeli ARG
3. Jamie Philip AND
4. Quentin Robbins NZ
5. Simon Schweiger AUT
6. Rudi Kroell AUT
7. Iker Fernandez SPA
8. Facundo Vial ARG

Quentin told me at the party that there is no way he could have beat me and also I thought that I maybe can do the top three but that’s objective judging. It was the first time I was in Andorra and I really liked it there. The contest was very relaxed and I had a really good time there.

On the way back we wanted to go to Baqueira and to San Sebastian to catch some waves but the weather forecast for the next four days have been wet and cold. So instead we decided to go to Marseille for a day and check out the famous skate park.Next day we drove back home and arrived in Innsbruck on Tuesday 6am in the morning after a 12 hours drive.

Sick road trippin!

Eeöööhh

Rudi