Erstellt am: 8. 3. 2009 - 22:01 Uhr
"A Blizzard of Aahs"
If you put them in speech marks, you can borrow catchy titles, can’t you? “Blizzard of Aahs" is a classic ski-movie by Greg Stump, who named it after the sound of free-skiing fans gasping in awe at the acrobatics and bravery of the eccentric skiers that he filmed.
I’d all but forgotten the iconic masterpiece of 1980’s free-skiing until this weekend, when I found myself gasping involuntarily “aaah!"(and sometimes even “oooh!") while sitting quite literally in a fierce blizzard that was sweeping over Schladming’s legendary Zielhang. I was frozen to the bones, but I remained absolutely spell-bound by the latest Austrian stop on the free-skiing tour - a Big Air invitational event called the Völkl Newschool Picknick.
Now I know that I have an annoying tendency to wax lyrical about free-skiers. It is indeed most unbecoming of a critical journalist. But when you see skiers up close as they are performing three somersaults in the air while revolving around the axis of their own body… well, that really is something you want to write home about.
simon fröhlich
The All Conquering Aussie
I’d inspected the Schladming kicker the night before. It was quite literally twice my height (and I’d be considered pretty tall in Japan). Local Schladming free-skier Flo Wieser, who was up there with me, estimated that he and his fellow competitors would be getting up to 6 metres of vertical air. So when I opened the door of my Schladming apartment door to walk to the event and the wind slammed it right back in my face, I was sure the event would be cancelled. After all, you surely can’t throw yourself up into the night-sky to the height of a small building with a gale-force wind blowing snow sideways across your flight path? How would you be able to keep your pirouetting body under control?
Apparently you can. The event wasn’t cancelled, the skiers weren’t overly inhibited and, in the end, a pretty tight competition was won by Russ Henshaw, who nonchalantly explained to me that it had always been windy where he learned to ski in Jindabyne, Australia (WARNING: more bizarre names to come in this story).
The teenager had already taken top-spot at the Red Bull Playstreets in Bad Gastein just three weeks ago, so he must be growing to love Austria. But to say this win came easily would be a monstrous lie.
Henshaw needed the victory champagne to swill the blood from his mouth, after falling on his penultimate jump and slamming hard backwards in the snow. The impact caused him to bite his tongue badly. When I caught up with Russ afterwards, he had a very swollen mouth: “I put my teeth right through my tongue. I even chipped a tooth," he told me, totally dead-pan; as if it was all a routine part of a good day’s work.
Martin Riess
Disappointment For The Local Matadors
The Schladming Zielhang has become rather hallowed ground for Austrian skiing – the sort of place where if you wave your red-white-red flag vigorously enough, some wide-thighed lad like Reinfried Herbst or Mario Matt is bound to show the rest of the Alpine world what’s what and treat us all to a home victory and another round of Jägermeister. The magic didn’t seem to rub off on Austria’s free-skiers though, sadly.
Nine Austrians were among the 30 skiers starting a qualification round that was particularly bedevilled by the wind and soft snow, yet only Patrick Hollaus made it into the select group of 10 contesting the final under the floodlights.
It was a shame, particularly since two Schladming locals were competing. The aforementioned Flo Wieser, who is a free-skiing veteran at the age 24 (!), as well as Tobi Tritscher, who had been on the podium at the Playstreets. They both had many friends in the crowd, many of them free-skiers themselves, who patiently explaining to me the actual meaning of a Cork 1080 (it's three 360s pulled off with your body off-axis).
There is a palpable free-ski scene in Schladming and I like that. No-where else have I skied where I have seen so many twin-tipped planks on the lifts or hopping around merrily among the trees.
When I first started coming here a few years ago the kids on twin-tips looked impossibly young to be doing what they were doing. Nowadays I have the same feeling when I see the world’s top competitors in action.
Martin Riess
Biene Maja
My hero of the evening was the Bavarian Bene Mayer (this is not a Künstlername – it’s simply short for Benedikt). He was distinctive not only for his orange jump-suit but also for his idiosyncratic skiing style, which involved pulling his knees wide apart while somersaulting. One of the things I like about these Big Air contests is that although the tricks often sound the same on paper, each rider adds his own particular flavour to the grabs and rotations. A 'cork 1080' is not just a 'cork 1080', if you catch my drift. The moves aren’t rigidly set out, as, for example, they seem to be in ice-skating, but they are there to be interpreted. It's rather like an innovatively covered pop song - you can instantly recognise the artist.
Stoked!
Anyway, I still can’t bring myself to say ‘stoked’ or 'dude', even when trying to ingratiate myself among the competitors, but I’m increasingly taken by the free-ski world. My pulse gets up as soon as the Game Show-esque announcement comes on the loudspeakers: “JUDGES ARE READY!". Then the skiers start into the in-run, most of them flipping round on their skis to hit the kicker backwards “DROPPING IN INVERTED!". I lean forward in my seat. And then BANG they explode into a confusion of twists, turns and somersaults, all of which, according at least to the stadium announcer, have a name - often with the word 'cork' in it, before landing with a joint-jarring thud on the landing slope. It takes your breath away. All of it.
Gnarly Chris
The sound of the stadium announcer was still playing in my internal stereo today as, during a refreshing spell of mountain sunshine, my naive enthusiasm took me up to the Schladming snow park, high up on the Planai.
“REPRESENTING GREAT BRITAIN" I mouthed to myself as I psyched up at the top. “JUDGES ARE READY!" I pointed my single-tipped carvers at the kicker: "DROPPING IN REGULAR!" and then - BOSH - I pulled off a gnarly 270 degree face-splat and tested my bindings and the calcium levels of my bones. The snow tasted surprisingly clean. Radical, dude! Sweet and awesome!
chris cummins
Bode Miller may have put his skis back in the cellar and headed for the surf, the summer collections might be already in the clothes shop windows, but, with the soft snow days approaching, this winter has plenty still on offer for those of us who love skiing .