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!

1st place in the SNO! Down

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!
 
 
 
 
 
 

Fun on the kicker

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!

First place in Jam

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

Week 1 – GB Youth Freeski Training

Just Chilling!

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

Sticking the tail grab!

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!

Winning Bronze in the Pipe

Day 2 – Skiercross

Taking the racing line

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!

Gold in Skiercross!

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

Top score in the rail section

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.

Stoked with gold in Slopestyle

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

Definitely 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!

Big air jumps

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!!!

Riding Powder

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.

Tweaking a tail grab

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!

What can I say!?

I hope you enjoy it!

Hitting the kicker at Norfolk

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!

I hope you like it!!

Big thanks to Dave for pulling these together.