Back to my second home and the Nendaz Freeride!
March 15, 2010So i got back to my second home Verbier last week……
Which meant a huge night out with everyone, obviously, and putting me in a bad way to start training for the Nendaz Freeride!! Great night though…. apparently!
The snow over this way is good, even though it hasn’t snowed in a while it has been very cold and this has kept the snow fairly fresh! So got straight on the powder mission, Bungle found me looking for people at the lift station and as soon as he mentioned that his crew were off to go and do Superbowl i was straight in the lift with them! After the short hike, we came into the bowl full of fresh pow and had a great first run, who said training cant be fun!!
A freeze frame from a little filming with Andy Bennett, sluff tastic!!
Photo above is a freeze frame from some filming we did with Andy after the last fresh snow fall.
So the reason i am back over this way is for the Nendaz Freeride, one of the biggest stops on the Freeride World Tour Qualifier series. It was a 5.30 am start on Saturday morning, which is always a difficult start to the day and myself and Julie Fletcher jumped in Bab’s wagon (thanks massively for the lending of the car) for the hour drive round to Nendaz.
With registration done and the riders meeting attended, it became clear that they were not going to let you compete unless you were wearing a harness…. problem as mine was over in Verbier, an emergency phone call to Chris Southwell and Christian Constantine meant that they would bring one over but would not get to the venue until 11.30…. So i had a very good look at the faces and waited! Due to the format of the comp you had to do 2 runs with the choice of 3 faces, but you had to have both done by 3pm.
So as soon as harness arrived, i ran up the hike to my first line. Managed to ski the line i wanted, missed the bigger cliff that i wanted to hit, but was fluid and stayed on my feet, bonus!
Photo by Christian Constantine - One of the qualifier faces
Photo by Christian Constantine - Me at the top of start gate 1, pretty rocky entry!
Sorry for the way the photos have been added, trying to do this on Chris’s Mac, cant use Mac’s, but you get the idea!
Photo by Christian Constantine - First part of my second run, trying my hardest to find the correct way through the rocks!
Photo by Christian Constantine - halfway down my second line, finding some rocks!
It was a good day, i didn’t qualify for the finals, but got a few World Tour points under my belt!
Team Kiwi were ever present at the event as always, with Neil qualifying for the finals in 4th and Janina pre qualified! So we all got up the hill on Sunday morning to watch our friend in the final, the standard was incredible, with some huge drops and massive inverts being thrown down! Well done to Janina who came second, personally she should have won it in my opinion, but was an awesome run! Also well done to Chris Southwell who rode the final with half of his body still hanging off from his crash in Italy, but he rode a nice smooth line and bagged some points!
So after a chilled Sunday evening with friends up in Fran’s rather nice chalet she is looking after (thanks for a lovely dinner)…. cigars in the hot tub and a relax in the steam room is always good after a comp, i am now just about to start the journey over to Slovakia for the final Freeride World Tour Qualifier for this seasons rankings. Looks like a good comp and there is a convoy of 3 cars heading over and i am sure team Kiwi will keep the trip interesting! Then back to Verbier on Friday for the Freeride World Tour Finals and Verbier Extreme party weekend!!!
Will get a proper update done after i am back from Slovakia, as Christian has taken some lovely photos!!!
Hope your all well xxx
