Last week the British Junior Snowboard Squad packed their bags with head coach Sonia Shaw and former British World Cup Snowboard Cross team rider, assistant coach for the week, James Foster!
Weather conditions looked favourable and everyone expected snow, however no-one could have predicted that there would be so much! In fact so much snow fell on the first night that we had reports that Geneva had been hit… in October! This unfortunately meant that the team could only make the best of the lower mountain as the peak, park and pipe were shut for the whole of their stay due to 85km/h winds and avalanche risks.
Most would be deterred, but nothing could dampen the team’s spirit, anyone who has had the privilege of riding with the team will know that their enthusiasm is intoxicating. With shovels in their bags and eagle eyes scouring the landscape for anything that could be adapted into a feature to ride on, the team started to hunt for an area they could build into a Jib Park. On the outskirts of Zermatt, they were fortunate to find a slope and park area that was just hidden from the heavy snowfall. Base camp had been found and not only that, the local workmen kindly contributed a few pipelines and barrier rails to the collective!
Now no-one could stop them.
Lewis Courtier-Jones, Jesse Smith and Joe Power all sessioned the cement pipe, bringing back the Dog Town and Z-boyz moves with style with laybacks on the cement and boardslides. Meanwhile head shaper Ollie Jackson had his crew of Mark Raper, Henry Shackleton, James Smith and Tom Hunt as they took on the rail to front flip/barrel line. They impressively built their line and Jesse got some awesome photos of them all.
Zermatt had never before seen such innovative thinking or style and the British Junior Squad certainly left their mark! This park was where the team spent most of the week training with the coaches also leading core-strength training sessions to top things off.
The other highlight of the week was the British Junior Squad fancy dress party for Halloween! Apparently this is not very common in Switzerland, so with Sonia as Dracula’s bride and James as a giant pumpkin, the Juniors put everyone to shame with their black bin bag “uniforms”. Invariably this lead to a snowball fight which the British Junior Squad walked away proudly. After all when is 50 v 8 ever going to be fair!
The Team are now looking forward to hitting Germany and showing their indoor skills at the Burton AM next week. The Burton AM Tour is one of Europe’s largest amateur freestyle snowboarding series, now into its fourth season, and this winter the tour will shake twelve resorts in twelve different countries. The Swatch TTR 2-star events give young riders born in 1989 or later the chance to show their freestyle skills and put themselves on the European snowboarding map. The qualifications are usually held in two jam sessions which mean riders get 75 minutes to stick some sick tricks in an attempt to grab the judges’ attention. The first three stops of the tour are indoor events, the first taking place on 15 November 2008 in Bispingen, Northern Germany. The tour stop winners will receive a guaranteed starting slot for the slopestyle competition at the Burton European Open (BEO) in Laax, Switzerland, and prizes from tour sponsors Burton, RED, and Anon.
British Junior Snowboard Squad Team members:
Ollie Jackson (16) – Broadstairs
Dean Horsfield (16) – Acclington, Lancashire
James Smith (15) - Goole
Sam Turnbull (17) - Northallerton
Henry Shackleton (13) - Newbury
Mark Raper (16) - Doncaster
Jo Power (16) - Switzerland
Declan Power (16) - Switzerland
Jesse Smith (16) - Edinburgh
Gareth Andrews (16) - Bedforshire
Tom Hunt (14) - Leeds
Aimee Fuller (17) – County Down
Lewis Courtier-Jones (13) - France
