Christof Schenk Wins Suzuki Nine Knights Perfect Hip

The Mission of Suzuki Nine Knights is different in a lot of aspects but the contest day is always providing a great show to the public, full of applause and beers.

The contest day officially starts when Nico Zacek the event owner switches to his second job: speaker. Together with Martin Misof, they get the public hyped for the following show.

Before lunch, Jules Bonnaire takes the virginity of the biggest transfer of the feature. He jumps from the left take off to the real landing of the hip and performs a huge rodeo 10 blunt. A few minutes after he unfortunately crashes and gets his third concussion in a month. Luckily he is fine and will be back on skis soon.

#wtf @julobonnaire @nineknights @watles.mountainfun

Une vidéo publiée par downdays freeski (@downdays_eu) le 2 Avril 2016 à 2h59 PDT

After lunch, Joffrey Pollet-Villard, makes the crowd scream with massive 360s and the judges smile with switch 5 blunts. Felix Usterud goes higher and higher on his dub flat 7 bow and arrow. But the guy who goes the biggest and takes all the prizes today is the “almost” local and crazy Italian, Christof Schenk with Dub cork 10s from the second to right take off, a TRIPLE backflip and a dub misty 10 safety from the right transfer kicker to the hip landing.

Well, way more happened this week but let’s talk later, now it’s time to prepare ourselves for the awesome gala tonight, which sums up this wonderful event perfectly every year.

Don’t believe any of the photos from Suzuki Nine Knights — They’re all Photoshopped

Text: Ethan Stone
Photoshop : David Malacrida

BTW – For the people who didn’t get it, it’s a joke.

The 2016 Suzuki Nine Knights Mission: The Perfect Hip kicked off yesterday in the tiny Italian ski resort of Watles in the beautiful valley called Vinschgau, and you should probably prepare yourself for the flood of breathtaking photos and videos that will start pouring out of this event any minute now.

In fact, some photos from yesterday’s “warm-up session” are already online, but we have to advise caution, because these photos are, quite obviously, all completely Photoshopped.

There is absolutely no way that on the very first day of the event, that Joffrey Pollet-Villard boosted well over the ten-meter mark on the hip; that Christof Schenk double-backflipped the gap jump to the back of the hip; or that Alex Ferreira did a double flatspin on the transfer jump to the hip landing.

“I wasn’t even on the mountain today,” said Joffrey. “But those photographers did a really great job of ‘shopping me into the photos of the hip.”

Suzuki Nine Knights continues today and the keyboard jockeys are already hard at work Photoshopping even more incredible action photos for you to disbelieve. “My next plan is to Photoshop Joffrey tail-tapping the International Space Station,” said photographer David Malacrida. “It’s gonna be so sick.”

Fabian Bosch, X Games winner confirms presence at Grandvalira Total Fight

Each year the Grandvalira Total Fight in Andorra makes firm steps to remain a world leader in freeskiing scene. In its twelfth edition, within calendar of the AFP World Tour circuit, will take place from March 31 to April 2.

The Grandvalira Total Fight is within the Gold category, at the same level like European Freeski Open in Switzerland or US Freeskiing Open.

The best world riders confirms presence in Grandvalira (Andorra) like Fabian Bosch, X-Games winner in Aspen, Oystein Braaten (Grandvalira Total Fight 2015 winner), Jesper Tjäder, Nick Goepper, Jonas Hunziker, Luca Schuler, Matt Walker or Noah Morrisson. In game, 20.000 dollars to split staggered top 6 classified.

This year, the Slopestyle circuit in Grandvalira is new with 6 hits: set rails to Transfer, rail up stairs Gap, combo Wallride Rail flat Gap, kicker 20 meters, kicker 18 meters and knucle Jump with double Canon Box.

Jib Action & Progression by the Girls at Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis

However, in order to support all the up-and-coming female riders, the Girls Shred Session on the 12th of March gathered about 15 motivated girls to practice their skills at the Jib and Progression Circus. All participating freeskiers received helpful tips by Birgit Rofner during a relaxed session and improved their skills.

 

The Queens in the Mountains
Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis offers the perfect conditions for the girls – a creative setup and plenty of time to work on new tricks. At the annual “Nine Queens” in March, the world’s leading female freeskiers shred an incredible and massive castle of snow. The participants of the Girls Shred Session even got an exclusive preview of this castle and paid the Freestyle Circus Serfaus a visit accompanied by the shred queen Birgit Rofner.

Pushing Your Skills, that’s the Motto
For the third year now, Birgit is proving her skills at the “Nine Queens“ and she’s always up for a cool park session among girls. That’s why the 21-year-old is the perfect choice when it comes to supporting the participants of the Girls Shred Session. No matter if it were the first slides on the butter box or the proper way to jump on the rail, Birgit had the perfect tips for everyone and took the girls’ skills to the next level. Their progress wasn’t just applauded but also captured by the QParks media crew. The gallery with the freeski pics of the session can be found on the Feel Free website!

Progression is Rewarded
The girls more than deserved the neatly packed goodie bags they received after the session and as a special bonus, “Nine Queens” project manager Lukas Krista took his time to show the group around the backstage area of the huge castle! A glorious way to celebrate the successful kick-off of the Girls Shred Sessions at Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis. There’s no doubt that the girls will be thinking back to this amazing day for a long time.

The world’s biggest hip session starts today

The 2016 edition of Suzuki Nine Knights starts today in Watles, Italy and Nico Zacek wants you to know one thing: Size matters.

Okay, maybe he wants you to know a bit more than that. He wants you to know that this year’s Suzuki Nine Knights is different than in years past. As you might have noticed, the event has evolved from a single castle-themed feature, with nine invited riders, into a full-fledged ski and snowboard superpark with who-knows-how-many riders (a lot more than nine, that’s for sure). Last year’s extravaganza, for example, included four wildly different terrain features and a grand total of 150,000 cubic meters of snow. (That’s enough snow to fill 60 Olympic-sized swimming pools, in case you were wondering.)

For 2016, Zacek and team decided to strike out in a new direction with the event—aiming for something new in the creativity department, without always striving for “bigger, faster, higher.” (Okay, yes, this is potentially the world’s biggest hip that we’re talking about, but bear with me.) The point, Zacek says, is that nobody has focused this much energy on a hip in a long time, and he thought it was past time for this classic terrain park feature to receive a modern remake.

So without further ado, let’s meet this year’s Suzuki Nine Knights feature: The Perfect Hip. Sixteen meters tall, 25 meters long, around 35,000 cubic meters of snow; the product of three weeks of snow collection and a ten-day build with three snowcats and ten hand shapers. This one hip is serviced by no fewer than five separate takeoffs: a central, standard hip take off flanked by two additional booters offering carve-into-the-wall redirect options; and those two takeoffs flanked in turn by two more takeoffs—one to the back of the hip (aka the mega gap) and one aimed straight at the left hip wall for a 90-degree redirect.

“Over the weeks we added some additional takeoffs, tunnels, battlements, rails, balconies, et cetera,” says Dirk Scheumann of Schneestern, whose team built the hip in collaboration with Italian snowpark company F-TECH. “Otherwise, it would have been boring,” he adds with a wink.

Here’s a Q&A with Nico to get you fully up to speed on the happenings at the 2016 Suzuki Nine Knights. Stay tuned this week for some high-flying shenanigans!

Downdays: Nico, how and why is this Suzuki Nine Knights different than in years before?
Nico Zacek: We’re calling this year’s Suzuki Nine Knights a “Mission: The Perfect Hip.” After doing it for eight years and getting bigger every year, a crazier park involved, more riders involved, adding snowboarding, more people on-site, more snow required every year, we decided to do something different. We’re not a sport where only “bigger, faster, higher” is cool—with a smart idea, you can do something just as cool. You can “scale down” without scaling down. We wanted to build the smartest feature possible, and in that case we wanted to build something that hasn’t been done properly, in our eyes, for many, many, many years.

When I was an athlete, hips were a big story: I remember Hemsedal, June Mountain, Jon Olsson… Ever since then, hips have happened, but none of them have really impacted. There’s been a great hip at Kitzsteinhorn for the past two years, for example. It was good! But it wasn’t as impactful as when Tanner [Hall] and Jon and Jakob [Wester] and Andreas [Hatveit] threw down in slushy Mammoth and June Mountain kind of conditions.

The branding team at work. Photo: Matthias “Vitus” Veit

We built the hip last year and really enjoyed it—it was crazy to see how high the guys went. But we couldn’t go any higher because the jump was in the way. So we said, let’s see what it takes to build the perfect hip. Obviously it’s Suzuki Nine Knights, so it’s going to look like a castle; and it’s not going to have one take-off, it’s going to have five. That’s the way we are. But that’s how we came up with the idea.

Now we’re here, and I feel so relieved and happy that we’ve gotten back to the exclusivity that we had in the beginning. It’s actually just nine skiers and nine snowboarders who will be here. That’s Nine Knights—that’s what we were for the first year, but ever since then it’s been many more. It’s more like an 80-person crew instead of 200. It’s one inrun.

The reaction that I’ve gotten from a lot of people is, “It’s so cool that someone is looking at building a proper hip again.” We want to give the boys some room for progression on that kind of feature. Jump progression has been skyrocketing, but what if I were to ask you who the top nine hip riders on the planet are? I had to research, I had to think so hard about who that would be. We don’t know any more, because people don’t ride hips. Back in the day it would have been Andreas, Jakob, Tanner, Jon. Those are the ones that come to mind. And Grete [Eliassen] on the girls’ side, she killed it. Jakob was supposed to be here, but unfortunately he’s a little injured and he just canceled a few days ago. I was on the phone with him a couple times and he helped us with the theory, but now last minute he had to drop out. Same with Jon, actually. He has a back injury and it’s not healed yet. Now we’ll see—we’ve still got a pretty good field of people.

Looking at this hip, I don’t think anyone could say that you’ve “taken a step back.” Actually I heard that this is the tallest Suzuki Nine Knights feature yet. Is that true?
Yes. It’s a 20-meter landing, which on a hip is ridiculous: a ten-meter bank to a ten-meter transition. Purely a ten-meter bank, I don’t think that’s ever been done on the planet. I think it’s the longest landing that a hip has ever had, which is safe and good. When you walk up there, you’ll probably think, “There’s no way I’m ever going to hit any of those.” But if you take a closer look, you realize it’s not supposed to be the scariest feature of all time—it’s supposed to be very fun and rideable, but also giving you the potential to go crazy high.

You saw the designs before, but were you still surprised when you saw the feature standing?
I drew the designs, so I obviously knew what to expect. I already had them one week after the last year. I had a vision—it popped into my head exactly the way it is right now. But the magnitude has gotten bigger than in my plans. Usually it’s the other way around: you design something and then you have to scale it back. But here we didn’t have to compromise. That’s a really great side note: they had a World Cup skicross here in January, so we recycled the snow, and only had to produce a little more. So we used the snow twice.

Size matters, I would say. You don’t want to build the takeoff too big, that doesn’t make any sense. But you want to give them the best possible landing, and that only works if you have a crazy wall of snow. When you stand there and look up, you’re going to be freaking out. I only skied down the landing, which is the easiest thing, but it was still scary.

What are your expectations for this week?
I like the feeling of the riders here. It’s a mix between pipe guys and slope guys. We’ve never really had that many pipe guys at Suzuki Nine Knights, but this year we’ve got Taylor Seaton, Alex Ferreira, David Wise, Joffrey [Pollet-Villard] — all full-time pipe experts. And then we’ve got the slope guys like Christof Schenk, Felix Usterud, ABM, Nicky Keefer, Bene Mayr and Jules Bonnaire.

And I wonder, who are the better hip riders—is it the pipe guys or the slope guys? That’s my expectation: to find that out. I wouldn’t be disappointed if there’s no world record happening. It’s nice to have a theme, but as always the theme of Suzuki Nine Knights is to have fun for a week and progress the sport, and progression doesn’t always happen with the highest air ever done. With the jumps that are angled toward the landing, any trick that’s going to happen is basically going to be new—they aren’t normal redirects. I don’t know if someone’s going to do a side-way transfer, double cork into a hip landing that comes in at a 45-degree angle… so that’s what I’m wondering, if something like that is going to happen.

So it’s not all about the world record hip air.
Not at all—but we did bring some guys who are interested in doing it. So it’s on the table, but I don’t want to make it the most important topic. The mainstream media can do that, but not Downdays.

Is this the biggest hip that’s ever been built?
I think so. It’s definitely the longest landing. I would love to have people comment on this interview and show us anything that’s bigger. It’s nothing I want to claim, but I think it’s true.

The Camera People of Suzuki Nine Queens

As I mentioned in my article last week about being the Suzuki Nine Queens course starter, there’s a lot more to this unique event than “just” the best women in snowboarding and freeskiing flying over a spectacular castle made of snow. There are also so many individuals working behind the scenes to make this snowsports phenomenon happen.

Or in this case, behind the lens—because for every Queen on the screen, there’s a guy (or a girl) behind her with a camera. Meet a few of the camera people of Suzuki Nine Queens—nine, actually, to stick with the theme.

 

Manuel Rueda
Role: Event filmer
Camera kit: Sony FS700 + 85mm
Favorite focal length: 85mm is my favourite for a lot of reasons. It works in so many situations, creates the perfect closeness for portraits and can give you a beautiful bokeh. And 85mm lenses usually have really big glass, which looks cool.
Favorite video technique: Probably Glidecam. It creates a smooth but organic camera movement and works for almost everything. Always good to bring a Glidecam.
Words of wisdom for filmers: If you don’t go, you won’t know.

 

 

 

 

 

Lukas Tielke
Role: Lead event filmer & co-director / Peoplegrapher
Camera kit: RED Dragon +70-200mm, Steadycam
Favorite focal length: 50mm – You can shoot everything with it. You can go close or you can go wide and you don’t have any distortion on the sides. You just have to choose your framing, closer or farther away.
Favorite video technique: Definitely the Steadycam because I love dynamic shots, I love that you can express something with movement. I think it makes a picture interesting to the viewer, even if the content isn’t that interesting.
Words of wisdom for filmers: Go out and shoot. Don’t talk about the technical stuff, just do your thing and don’t be a nerd. It’s all about being creative, asking people if they want to do a project for free; just getting out there and doing things.

 

Klaus Polzer
Role: Event photographer / Distillery
Camera kit: Nikon D4 + 35mm 1f/.8
Favorite focal length: The one that’s good for the shot.
Favorite photo technique: Getting the shot.
Words of wisdom for photographers: Learn seeing before picking up a camera. It’s the most important thing. The photo is done in your head and in your eye, and not in the camera. Fixed focal lengths are much better than zooms because they force you to look around a little bit more. And avoid putting your camera bag in the frame!

 

 

Thomas Dunzendorfer
Role: Event filmer / Distillery
Camera kit: Sony SF700 with the Oddysey7Q+ recorder + Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8
Favorite focal length: 35mm
Favorite film technique: Handheld. I definitely like it when there’s a little movement in the shot even if you’re aiming for steady footage. Surely it depends on what you’re a about to shoot, but I always try to get natural movement in the shot.

Words of wisdom for filmers: Check white balance. It’s not about the camera. People tend to think that a good, expensive camera brings in good shots. Pay attention on framing, movement of camera and what you want to tell with your shot.

 

Mark von Roy
Role: Video production manager / Distillery
Camera kit: Sony FS700 + Walimex 24mm f/1.4mm on a Glidecam 2000
Favorite focal length: I really dig the 24mm on the FS700 for Steadycam shots. For features like this it kind of does the feature justice. For lifestyle I love the 50mm as well.
Favorite video technique: That’s a tough one. For a couple of weeks you’re thinking, “Oh, those drone shots are sick!” But then it gets oversaturated, and you’re over it. The same happened with Glidecam. Variety, I would say — in any edit, variety is key.
Words of wisdom for filmers: Be a sponge. If you’re around talented people, ask questions, observe, find out what they do and try to absorb as much knowledge as you can. Go shooting for a week or two using just one focal length. It’s all about getting the right angle for the lens, and that helped me think about framing in a whole different way.

 

Dasha Nosova
Role: Invited photographer / Freelancer. I was lucky to get an invitation this year, I was so stoked when the organizers hit me up about this. I always wanted to get here because the setup always looks so crazy in the pictures.
Camera kit: Canon 1DX + Canon 70-200mm w/ 1.4x extender, Elinchrome flashes
Favorite focal length: It depends on what I’m shooting. I really like the fisheye for skateboarding, close-up shots. I also like 50mm for taking portraits, and sometimes it’s really good for action shots. I actually like fixed lenses better, but because I have to shoot a lot of big stuff, like big jumps in the park or backcountry, I always have to be able to use some different zooms.
Favorite photo technique: I love playing with backgrounds and foregrounds. I don’t really like to just take a regular picture of the setup. I like having people in the foreground, or some trees, or other funny stuff going down. I like to catch not just one thing in the picture, but everything that surrounds it as well.
Words of wisdom for photographers: Keep taking photos. Don’t try to copy anyone, you’ve got your own eye for that. Just enjoy and don’t take it too seriously.

 

 

 

 

Sebastian Stücke
Role: Filmer, Rebel TV
Camera kit: Panasonic GH4 + 12-35mm f/2.8 on a DJI Ronin gimbal
Favorite focal length: That’s hard. I think it depends on what you’re shooting, but I think that 35mm is perfect for the gimbal. It’s clear for portraits and works well on the Ronin.
Favorite video technique: Not particularly. When the picture is fine, it’s just a feeling.
Words of wisdom for filmers: Do what you like. If you’re having fun, you’re doing the right thing.

 

 

 

 

 

Sean Balmer
Role: Video asset collector, GoPro
Camera kit: Today I had a lot of headcams to hand out to the girls to make sure they’re wearing cameras. So I brought a lot of ready-to-go headcams, I think I have 15 GoPros in my bag, plus a few special mounts like the “unicorn” that sticks off the front of your head, that’s good for the no-handed selfie. I also have a thing called a Norbert, I attach a big microphone to that that cuts out all the wind noise that we get up here.
Favorite focal length: Anything past 10cm is pretty much what I’m into. 8mm is where I’m at, and I like to keep it there.
Favorite video technique: Let the athletes do it.
Words of wisdom for filmers: Charge your batteries, check the lens cap and make sure it’s in focus.

 

Ilanna Barkusky
Role: Invited photographer/ Freelancer
Camera kit: Canon D1X + 70-2oomm
Favorite focal length: 70mm
Favorite photo technique: Shooting into the sun/flares
Words of wisdom for photographers: Set your goals high and put in the work to chase them, you might surprise yourself!

Last Call for Red Bull Illume Submissions

With its past three editions—2007, 2010, and 2013—the Red Bull Illume has established itself as the premier showcase for action sports photography worldwide. “It has brought sensational pictures to the limelight and also uncovered outstanding new talent”, says Klaus Polzer, photo editor of Downdays Magazine and this year part of the selected crew of judges for the Red Bull Illume.

While you might think that only big name photographers have a shot at the coveted awards, this is not true. Some talented photographers have actually started their professional careers through winning at the Red Bull Illume. “Some categories usually see a selection of the best action sports athletes performing at the most amazing places and it is naturally the big name photographers who get the chance to shoot this. But there are other categories like ‘Close-up’ or ‘Lifestyle’ that offer the same opportunities for everyone”, explains Klaus Polzer. “So it is really important to choose the right category for your best photos.”

In fact, if you add ‘Enhance’ and ‘New Creativity’, two categories based on post-production skills and creative approach, as well as ‘Mobile’, a new category for 2016 exclusively for shots taken with mobile phones or tablets, half of the categories at Red Bull Illume are likely to see some previously unknown photographers among the Top 50 finalists. So you better get in front of your computer screen, browse through your archives and submit your best photographs. It’s easy. Simply go to www.redbullillume.com, create an account and upload your images. But hurry up, submission closes at March 31st 2016!

The Freeski Playoffs are an ode to style

Let me paint the scene for you. A mountain standing over the valley, a perfect jump and a sunset final in front of a huge crowd. The VIP and media are inside the fences, the families and tourists behind, and the alcoholics are hiding in the trees. The riders are the center of attention, launching the jump into the sunset, fighting for the victory ring as the photographers’ flashes pop.

The competition concept here is different than anywhere else. First off, the riders are organized like this:

Conférence FRANCE : Julien Eustache – Jules Bonnaire – David Bonneville – Nathan Gaidet – Hugo Laugier – Quentin Ladame – Cesar Fabre – Ben Buratti

Conférence WORLD : – Fabian Bosch – Till Matti – Kai Malher – James Woods – Matt Walker – John Brown – Aleksi Patja – Noah Wallace

 

After two runs to make the rankings in each conference, the riders battle against each other until the best of each conference is named. In the end, the best from both sides fight for the title—but whatever the format is, the most important thing here is the judging.

During this competition the two international judges, Charly Royer and Lao Chazelas have the pleasure of judging only style, giving the victory to Aleksi Patja with a switch wobble 900 safety. Judging style is easier said than done—so props to the judges and the riders, who played the finals as well as they played in the riders’ hockey game the day before.

Again this event was a real success, blowing away expectations—at least ours. Enjoy the photo portfolio.

 

The World champions of the 2016 FWT will be crowned in less than two weeks

There is not a competition face in the world that has seen more glory, defeat, and inspiration than the renowned North face of the Bec des Rosses, looming over the ski resort of Verbier, Switzerland at 3223m. The season of the 2016 Swatch Freeride World Tour will come to a momentous finale on the 2nd of April when the 28 remaining riders on the FWT drop into the face for one final chance to earn the title of World Champion in each of the four disciplines.

After the last qualifying cut in Haines, Alaska, the original 63 riders have been reduced to a field of just 12 ski men, 6 snowboard men, 6 ski women, and 4 snowboard women. The victor of each category of the Xtreme will be crowned after event and the riders’ top four results of the season will be counted to determine which riders will be crowned the World Champions.

Two starting gates will mark the entrance to the legendary face: one for men and one for women. The riders will descend over 600 meters to the finish line at 2700m while spectators can look comfortably on from the Col des Gentianes, situated directly in front of the face at 3000m or with an accessible spectator area on-mountain next to the finish line. In addition to the FWT, the Freeride Junior Tour by Dakine competition is taking place concurrently on the nearby Mont Gelé on April 3rd.

The exciting conclusion to the 2016 Swatch Freeride World Tour is the most important event in freeride and is a showcase of the progression of the finest freeride athletes in the world. Watch the event live on the mountain or catch the live webcast with women ski and snowboard categories available on www.freerideworldtour.com, with men ski and snowboarder categories on www.freerideworldtour.com and Red Bull TV with a short women recap of the event on those two channels.

black crows presents the chamonix unlimited festival

 

What happens when music culture meets the cradle of alpinism? Does listening to “Moonlight Sonata” help you float over rocks? Can EDM bass drops be used to trigger avalanches? Does listening to Mobb Deep really make you ski like a gangster? These theories and more are sure to be tested during the chamonix unlimited festival presented by black crows on April 7-11, 2016 in Chamonix.

For those who love both music and skiing, the chamonix unlimited festival offers a unique chance to enjoy the best of both in one of the world’s most renowned alpine environments. The five-day festival will keep Chamonix popping with events and happenings across the valley, from the daily festival village at Lognan in Grands Montets, to special trips on the Montenvers Train to the famous Mer de Glace, to guided ski tours off the Aiguille du Midi down the Vallée Blanche, to turning the Plan Joran lift station into a 2,000-person concert venue!

With a stacked international music line-up and many other fun events throughout the week, there’s no better time to experience the already mythical Chamonix atmosphere than during this festival. Visit chamonix-unlimited.com to get all the details on the festival and to book your tickets!

 

Freestyle.ch – No event in 2016

Sad new for action sports fans: Europe’s largest freestyle festival and a revered city big air event, the freestyle.ch will not return in 2016—the second year in a row that organizers have been forced to cancel the event.

“Unfortunately, freestyle.ch will not take place this year,” wrote project manager Neil Morgan in an email to the media. “Once more it’s a great disappointment, but we can’t prolong this decision any longer. We’ve tried everything in the past months to continue the event at this level. We’ve accomplished a lot, but unfortunately certain political proceedings, in addition to an already challenging sponsorship environment, have prevented us from securing the necessary funding from both public and private sources.”

The official PR release provides additional details: freestyle.ch has received the thumbs-up from FIS to become an official part of the World Cup Big Air circuit, meaning the event could become an important stop on the path to Olympic qualification for Big Air snowboarders (and certainly skiers soon as well). But the freestyle.ch jump needed to become bigger in order to meet the FIS Big Air criteria — and the traditional spot on the Ländiwiese in Zurich just wasn’t big enough.

“In September 2015, the organizers submitted an application to police headquarters in Zurich to build the inrun ramp outside of the Ländiwiese,” reports the press release. “Unfortunately, it took three months for the organizers to receive a negative response from the responsible office. The uncertainty about the event location made it even more difficult to find sponsors.”

However, in their search for a new event location, the freestyle.ch organizers have found a possible new location in Bern, where a large available space, existing infrastructure and promises of strong local partnerships present new opportunities. “A lot of support and financial assistance has already been promised from city, cantonal, regional and tourist-board levels,” reports the press release. “A possible relocation to the capital city is being pursued for 2017.”

 

 

 

Suzuki Nine Queens: The view from the drop-in

The Suzuki Nine Queens event has been around for six years now, and I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with it for many of them, first as a park shaper, then as a journalist. This year I got to try out a new role: course starter, aka starting at the top of the drop-in with a radio and making sure that no one lands on anyone else’s head.

At least, that’s all I thought it would be at first. But it turns out that there’s a lot more to being the Suzuki Nine Queens starter than just communicating with the landing spotter to close the jump when there’s a crash.

There’s also communication with the production team—eight or ten other guys with radios encircling the feature with a 360-degree network of camera angles and support staff at all times. Among the other major players on the radio channels—event frontman Nico Zacek,  video production manager Mark von Roy, on-hill production guru Lukas Krista—I found out that the starter has the unique role of calling the play as the action goes down, and attempting in some way to facilitate the chaos.

So this means: memorizing the names of all the girls so I can call their names as they drop for the camera team’s reference (yes, I got to ask several famous pro snowboarders “What was your name again?”); counting down the take-offs for our event photographer Klaus Polzer, who’s got a landing perspective for shooting sequences; making sure that the cameramen are paying attention for the big drops and identifying when, exactly, those big drops might be happening; communicating with the shapers to schedule fast reshapes of the features; and all the other minutiae that flows across the radio channels at an event like this. The radio is the secret channel into the hidden infrastructure of Suzuki Nine Queens: the small army of production staff that’s laboring constantly behind the scenes to create this event and broadcast it to the world.

 

This is Jonee. If you traveled to or from Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis or spent a night there last week, he probably had something to do with it. Photo: David Malacrida

This is Lukas, who took on the difficult task of on-hill production manager this year, and laced it like a boss. Photo: Malacrida

But that’s not all. The starter at this event is also expected to be a hype man and producer of sorts—keeping the vibe high in the drop-in, coordinating interesting events if possible: doubles drops of skiers and snowboarders together? Trains with all the girls dropping at once? Excuse me, ma’am, does that look of intensity in your face mean that you’re about to do a double? And sorry, that was awkward—I’m holding my hand up to stop you from hitting the jump, not for a high five.

Around the second day, Nico Zacek rolls by the drop-in and gives me the master class in starter etiquette. After repeatedly asking me to call down to the landing and ask, “Did she stomp that?”, finally I just hand my radio over to Nico, and he goes to town: “Is the drone ready to get the shot? Are the top girls in the start gate, ready for the drone? All other cameramen paying attention?” Boom, just like that, Nico is calling the shots and has stepped up the hype a notch. He hands me back the radio and skis off back into the whirlwind of action around the castle, to do a TV interview, revise tomorrow’s schedule on the fly with his team, chat with the representative of a big sponsor, and still find time to spend with his wife and baby daughter.

Of course, Suzuki Nine Queens is about the invited women and their sports, and I would hate to write an article about an amazing women’s event and not talk at all about the women. But given that this has already been done a lot already, and will continue to be done in the future, I’d like to give the people behind the scenes their fair shake—a little shoutout to all the men and women behind the scenes who labor to make this unique event happen. For example, there’s a guy named Ole who sits in the production office logging the video footage all week, while everyone else goes up onto the mountain. There’s a guy named Jonee managing a Gordian Knot of logistics. There are guys named Nejc, Jannis and Kaspars who are up late at night and early in the morning, and probably partying in between, working to keep the snow castle in top shape. And many, many others whose names I haven’t mentioned here, but are all parts of the great spinning Suzuki Nine Queens machine.

This is Viola and Justine from PR – they’re responsible for making sure that your favorite news outlet gets all the latest updates from Suzuki Nine Queens, every day. Photo: Malacrida

Naptime in the production office: Sean Balmer from GoPro is all tuckered out. Photo: Malacrida

Now all that said, even if this article isn’t really about the Queens themselves, one great thing about being the starter is seeing all of the action going down, and I can tell you this—the women of freeskiing and snowboarding laid a hurtin’ on the feature last week.

From Hailey Langland’s beautifully corked frontside 360s and on-point shifty game to massive backside and frontside 1080s from Anna Gasser and Klaudia Medlova, the snowboarders put on an impressive showing. On the skiing side, despite the absence of several of the big names in women’s big air, the ladies of Suzuki Nine Queens rose up to show their excellence: event veterans like Coline Ballet-Baz, Emma Dahlström, Keri Herman, Katie Summerhayes and Dania Assaly kept the sleds lapping throughout all the sessions, sometimes even driving themselves if the sled drivers happened to be too hung over from the night before.

Meanwhile, newcomers like Maggie Voisin, Giulia Tanno and Johanne Killi kept up with the pace with an impressive showing, despite a scary crash from Killi, who compressed on the takeoff while skiing switch and managed to do a starfish half switch backflip onto the deck of the jump—narrowly avoiding the tunnel of the central jump through the tower. Thankfully she walked away with only bruises, but we missed seeing her cork 900 blunts for the remainder of the event. In other crash news, Suzanna Stromkova took a hard tumble on a rodeo 900, but returned for the contest day to bring her rodeo all the way to 1080.

Group photo in the start gate. Thanks, ladies, for an incredible week! Photo: Stone

All throughout the week, I watched these tough women stare down the drop-in, weighing new tricks on this massive feature without a hint of fear in their eyes (okay, I couldn’t see through the goggles, but I’m guessing)—lapping the jump for hours and days on end, pushing themselves, brushing off the hard crashes and exhausting sessions with the cool ease of professionals. Being able to watch all that from the start gate—a validation of all that the people behind the scenes have worked for—was probably the most impressive thing of all.

Big thanks to everyone on the Suzuki Nine Queens team and all the participants for another incredible week in Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis.

Disclaimer: Suzuki Nine Queens is organized by the Distillery, Downdays’ parent company. So everything we write about it is pure propaganda.