I’m attending a film premiere on Thursday night. And not just any film premiere. My film premiere. I’m a little nervous…
ways2winter is a feature-length documentary following two British seasonnaires in the French resort of Les 2 Alpes through the winter season 09/10. It’s not your average snowsports film. Sure, there’s plenty of riding but there’s also hard work and strong personalities, showing the reality of seasonnaire life.
This year’s freestyle ski and snowboard competition, the Kumi Yama, proved to be a showcase for some epic riding. The eventual winners of the amateur Slopestyle ski competition were Bopcrew, and Bomb Squad on snowboards. In the professional event the winners were Elvis Harsheim, Nicolas Vuigner and Markus Eder on skis, and Matthieu Crepel, Alluar Ricciardi and Arthur Longo. Longo is also a Deux Alpes local and competed at this year’s Olympic Games.
The prize for Best Trick on skis was won by Bapiste Collomb Patton and there were joint winners in the snowboard category: Johan Baisamy and Kazu Kokubo. In the Superpipe, the winners were Nivo Bijonsen on skis and Kazu Kokubo on snowboard. The photography prize, a trip to Japan and a huge goodie bag, was won by David Tchag.
Today was the final of the Kumi Yama’s invitational Superpipe competition and – as always – the talent was mixed. You’d expect riders that have been invited to take part to be of a certain standard, but the quality of tricks was hugely varied. Some riders barely managed to reach the top of the wall, let alone get any air. Of course, I’m far from an expert myself, and have been known to snow-plough down the pipe screaming. But that’s probably why I don’t get invited to compete in this event… and quite rightly so!