British Snow Tour (Castleford) - Indoor Slopestyle Championships

Posted by Josh Birch [Pro Skier] on October 7th, 2009

This weekend just gone was the annual return of the British Indoor Slopestyle championships at Castleford SnoZone. I chose to travel up to Castleford on the Friday so that we could ski the SnoStorm event that was taking place there on the friday night. The journey to Castleford is always a long one, but we broke it up a bit by picking up Woodsy in Sheffield on the way. Once we had go to SnoZone, we quickly nipped over the road to check into the hotel. Me, Woodsy, Helen and a few others went over to get some food before going out riding.
The course was amazing, in fact Friday night was one of the best sessions i’ve had in a while. There was a great crew of riders skiing, all having fun, learning new tricks and getting stoked for the competition the following day. We called it a little early on Friday, as we were all getting a bit tired after such an intense session. When we got back to the hotel we watched the new Poorboyz Movie - Everyday Is A Saturday, which we were all very impressed with.
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In the morning, there wasn’t a rush to get to the slope as the boarders were on first. We were all fairly lazy in the morning, and re-watched Everyday Is A Saturday again. We went for lunch in Nando’s after chilling out in the morning, and then went over to say hello to everyone that was arriving. This event had the biggest turn out, out of all the British Snow Tour events this year, and so there was a little delay for us skiers to get on.
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Nevertheless, all the skiers were still stoked, and the course was still looking awesome. Everyone got their runs down fairly quick in practise in preparation for the qualifications. My first qualification run i felt was fairly good, but my second run wasn’t as good. I actually ended up qualifying first place for the final, much to my surprise. That position is always a good one, as it allows you to see what everyone else is doing and then what you have to do.
My first final run was more my safety final run, so at least i had one run down, and could go for it on my second run. After seeing everyone else’s second run, the pressure was on as i was the last rider to drop. Everything went well in my run, and i managed to land a switch 270 onto the side hit gas tube, pretzel 450 out. I was pretty stoked with how i rid, how good the day was, and most of all what a great competition it was.
Katie and I ended up winning the Animal Indoor Slopestyle championships this year, something i’ve always wanted to do. It was such a good feeling to win again, especially after just recently being crowned the Artificial Slopestyle Champion also. I have never won a British Snow Tour event before, so to win two of these events in the space of 3 weeks is in an amazing feeling.
After saying our goodbyes to everyone, we headed back to the hotel to get showered and cleaned, before going out for a meal to Pizza Express. After having our food, we met up with the likes of Paddy and Thorney, who were also getting food. We then went to the bowling alley which was a good laugh. I had a really good night out with everyone on Saturday, it was very funny despite getting in very late.
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In the morning, all of us were very tired from the night before and didn’t rise till about 11. When we rose, we packed up all our stuff, got some food at McDonalds, then headed home. We dropped Woodsy home in Sheffield, then went straight on back to mine.
Once again, a massive thanks to Stu, and the rest of the British Snow Tour crew, for the wicked events they have held this year.

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