MJ's Ski Blog

Yesterday we made the long journey to Castleford for the 3rd annual SNO!down.  The SNO!down is always a relaxed comp which means that everyone is in their comfort zone for most of the time!

The set up this year was sick and everyone was throwing down in the jam!  The team event was so much fun as usual!  People were coming up with the craziest ideas like jumping over people, skiing with their sleeves tied together and with their jumpers on backwards!

At prize giving I got awarded 1st place in the under 16′s category! I was completely stoked!

Congratulations to my team mate Sam Gaskin on getting 2nd place in the under 12′s

Can’t wait for next year!
 
 
 
 
 
 

We went to the SnoTrax slope in Christchurch for Air Attack! – their first ever competition on a new type of matting called pro-slope.

The Proslope is definitely a lot different to any other dryslope matting I have ever skied on. It’s a lot softer underfoot than perma snow and snoflex and the upside is that it doesn’t seem to burn out your bases. When you crash it doesn’t hurt which is definitely a bonus when your trying new tricks! It is also very good for getting up speed and just for general all round skiing as well as freestyle! The only downside is that there aren’t enough slopes in the country with this matting!!

The competition got off to a good start with a warm up session and then straight into the jam itself. It was a fun, relaxed competition and was a great start to the summer (in the rain!!!)

At the end of the day we had the presentation in the clubhouse and I was stoked to get 1st place and land some hard cash too!!

Thanks to Darren and the rest of the team for laying down a great competition!  You can read the full write up here!

I’m very happy to say that Virgin Active are now supporting me with free access to their amazing gym to help with my fitness and conditioning for skiing!

I can’t wait to work alongside their amazing trainers to help me improve my stamina and overall performance.

Just got back from two pretty successful weeks in Laxx!
(click on a photo to see it in full!)

Week 1 – GB Youth Freeski Training

I headed out to Laxx a week before all the competitions started on a GB youth training camp to get some practice in on the features! Unfortunately on the first day I  badly injured my back! but with alot of neurofen and some massaging from the TENS machine I was able to recover quickly and still got in a very good week of training!  Our coaches were the brilliant Neil McGrain, Dave Young and Jamie Cameron! I learnt a few new tricks in the pipe and hit some of the biggest jumps I have ever done in my life with the help from these guys!

Week 2 – The British Championships

 

Day 1 – Halfpipe

We got up to the top of the hill and saw that on the day of the competition the pipe was wrecked!  The walls had chunks taken out of them and they were covered in fresh snow. We spent a while side-slipping and shaping the walls to make as easy a ride as possible. Despite the pipe, everyone threw down in the qualifiers.  I made the finals, finishing 10th overall and placing 3rd in youth mens!

 

Day 2 – Skiercross

This year the skiercross course was a lot more dangerous than last year.  There were a lot of high speed jumps and sharp corners!  The competition started the same way as usual…2 timed runs which then put us into heats but because there was only 6 in my category we went straight into the finals.  I qualified for the final in 3rd along with two extremely fast racers and Ethan Prince.  The racer who was favourite to win overshot the first jump, losing his skis and crashing out!

The second racer, Ethan and I had to dodge him and his equipment which was scattered everywhere to carry on!  At the finish it was extremely close with the racer catching up with me but I just managed to cross the line in 1st place!

 

Day 3 – Slopestyle

Out of all of the disciplines, I was looking forward to slopestyle the most!  I had been hitting the biggest jumps on the course all week but when it came to the practice runs in the competition I could only just get enough speed to clear the mediums! In Qualifiers I was extremly dissapointed with my performance and went off the watch the boarders compete in big air and ride the pipe for a bit. I was more than shocked when my dad came over to tell me I had got into the finals. I got back to the course just in time to get one warm up run before my final runs! I was worried to hear that during one of his runs Harris Booth had knuckled and injured himself.

During the finals I put down solid runs and later went to prize giving hoping for a place – I was stunned to hear that I actually got the Gold!!  Later that night I found out that I got the highest rail score in the mens overall final and placed 4th overall narrowly missing out on an overall podium!

 

Day 4 -  Big air

To be honest, I didnt really hit the big air kicker that much until the day of the competition because I didnt really like it but on the day, the more I hit it the more I loved it!  My two qualifying runs went really well! I stomped a 3 tail grab and a cork 7 nose!  I was stoked to make it into the finals but narrowly missed out on a podium in my category coming 4th!

 

Overall

A huge thanks to Neil Mcgrain, Dave young and Jamie Cameron for coaching and looking after me, a massive thanks to Becky Hammond for cooking all our meals during the first week!

Thanks to all of my sponsors for supplying me with my gear and helping me to be out there!  A special thanks to the Gaskin family for coming to the rescue with new poles at such short notice after I snapped both of my old ones!

Finally, thanks to Stuart and Spencer for putting on such a fantastic week, and congratulations to all of the other medalists!!!

 

In February I spent a fantastic week in Austria learning how to ski back-country.

Heading out to Krippenstein  was an adventure. It was the first time travelling on my own and only the second time I can remember travelling on a plane in my life.

The second we got to the small resort it was already snowing and there was plenty of snow everywhere. We were staying in a lodge at the very top of the mountain complete with 10 huskies and loads of ski-dos.

We had a piste basher build us a kicker and spent the week riding the jump and cruising the powder on some absolutely awesome K2 Powder skis!

   

Our guide Andi, knew every route in detail and he took us to areas where no one else had skied and we were creating the first tracks in the snow. We hit plenty of pillows, cliffs and steep faces.

Andi looked after us brilliantly all week – can’t thank him enough.

   

 

All in all it was a fantastic week and I can’t wait for my next adventure!

Spent some time over the New Year in L2A – the weather wasn’t great, way too much snow and bad visibility days but I still had a great time skiing with David Bilsland and managed to pull a bit of footage together for a short edit.

I hope you enjoy it!

Had an awesome time at Norfolk Ski Slope on Saturday – skiing in a 4 hour grom camp and learning a few new tricks.

At the end of it I was stoked to be selected along with my fellow team mate Monty to compete in the London Ride at Earls Court next week. We will be competing on the Saturday so make sure you come along to cheer us on!

Had a great time skiing in L2A over the summer - had a few camera issues and also lack of a camera crew to follow me but here’s a short edit from the few video sessions I had.

I hope you like it!!

 

Earlier this year I spent a few days being coached by Dave Young.  Check out these great instructional videos he filmed for Fall Line magazine – featuring me!

Big thanks to Dave for pulling these together.

Hey – here’s my entry for this year’s BSG comp – Hope you like it

A couple of weeks ago my Dad’s friend Dean took some photos of me while we were at the Bracknell Jam – what do you think of them?

 

Woop woop!!! I’m on the Bawbags team – check out the goodies they sent me a couple of weeks ago!

http://www.mjski.com/SponsorsBawbags.html

The past month has been amazing! I have been skiing at my best in a while and to my luck this month there has been three comps – the first and second legs of the Southern Freestyle Series and the Oakley Grom Games!

Swadlincote – Southern Freestyle Leg 1

The first of the month saw the first leg of the Southern Series, which was being held at Swadlincote dry slope. The competition was great with a fairly good atmosphere. Everyone was throwing it down, especially Tom Coe and Kiki Patel with his wizard tricks…
At the end of the day I walked away with the 1^st under 14’s male title.

Oakley Grom Games

Next up was the Oakley Grom Games which, the same as the year before was being held at the Chill Factore. When my family and I got there we signed in and then went off to catch up with people we hadn’t seen in a while. When I finally got out on to the slope I saw how sick the setup was. After skiing for a while I started to get the feel for the flow of the course and from the way everyone one had skied during the jam I didn’t think I was going to get a podium at all (as my category was 12-17) but to my surprise I was called up for 2^nd place!!

I then was even more amazed when I found out I was in the finals with James Machon, TJ Harding and Murray Buchan, who had all been skiing really well. It was a sudden death final and in the first round I was drawn against TJ Harding but because of my bad choice of line and his sickness I didn’t beat him. So I then competed against Murray (as he didn’t win against James Machon) to decide the 3^rd and 4^th places. I corrected my line and beat Murray for 3^rd place overall with James Machon in 2^nd and TJ Harding in 1^st. Pat Sharples put on an amazing games it was totally awesome – can’t wait for next year!

Chatham – Southern Freestyle Leg 2

The final comp of the month was the 2^nd leg of the Southern Freestyle Series which was at my home slope Chatham. As soon as I got there the atmosphere was already fun and intense and everyone wanted to go up and ski as the setup was really good. Everyone skied really well throughout the day especially Tom Coe, Tom Saunders, Kiki Patel and Ollie Powell.

The finalists were then announced and I was one of them. After a short break, everyone put down their final runs… there was such a high standard. At the end of a fantastic day, it was time for prize giving – I was called up for 1^st under 14’s and 2^nd overall.

Now all that is left is the final comp at Bracknell. So let’s wait and see what happens.

Kent Sport have written a case study on my involvement with the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust!

You can read all about it here:

http://www.kentsport.org/london2012/heroes_future_back_talent.asp

My case study is towards the bottom

I spent some time in the awesome snowpark in L2A over Easter – here’s the result:

Leave me a comment if you like it!!