I unfortunately didnt have such a good result at WWA Worlds in Reno last weekend. I was in a heat with Danny Harf and some of the other top pros. I had an average run due to a couple of falls, to be honest I was not too fond out the supra wake but I cant really use that as an excuse because its the same wake everyone else had.
On another note, I have a new short clip up on the net, it is from a set I had one afternoon on my lake, it includes a 1080 attempt.
Check it out at http://web.mac.com/wakestuff/iWeb/Wakestuff.co.uk/Brad%20Smeele.html

l8a

Brad Smeele is proudly sponsored by:

Oakley
Mountain Dew
Ronix Wakeboards
Ballistics
Ju$t A Dollar

Look what i did on Friday!!!!

Snapper Rocks was crazy heavy today!! see my pics!!!! There has been cyclone conditions over the past week!! and it was not a great day for my favorite board!! I pulled into this heavy stand up barrel though Big groin (snapper point) the lip was thick and mean!! I almost came out of the thing, but was a bit too deep, before I knew it i was off my board and getting thrown around like a rag doll. Finally when I reached the surface I noticed I only had half a board left the other half was no where to be seen!!

So uni games has started – the madness started as soon as the teams hit town. Saturday night was massive – nothing was held back as the biggest team canterbury ever took over shooters and owned dance floors all around town.

Sunday was a freeride day and I met up with MD ambassador Robett Hollis up the hill for a fun day messing around freeriding with a little bit of park thrown in. Monday was an early start with border cross kicking off early. I won every heat until the semi finals when I met up with border cross champ Phil Dominick I was claimed by his pure racing setup which was about 10cm’s larger than my board. Neway that semi final knock out put me in 5h and earnd some points for the team.

Today we were meant to have pipe and big air but instead we had a hip comp which was more of an extra small air. The big air was moved to another small jump because of the wind difficulties – we don’t have results yet but i think i did better in the hip than the big air but we will see.

The competitive side of things ends for the snowboarders tomorrow with the slopestyle then the sier cross is Thursday. Hopefully good times are instore and Team Canterbury wins the best overall team for the first time ever.

The last few weeks have been pretty mellow for me, I have been riding a bit but mainly focusing on getting my neck better from the compressed disc I received while in the UK.

Watched the last Double up qualifier for Parks’ Double or Nothing on monday this week, the top three best tricks qualified, all being heel 900s. Adam Errington took 1st, Dean Smith took 2nd and Jimmy LaRiche took 3rd.

I am headed off to Reno tomorrow for the WWA World champs this weekend, this is my first time riding in the Pro division at the Worlds.
After worlds I will be headed back to Orlando to have a few weeks practice at hitting double ups before Parks’ Double or Nothing contest.

I will post results up over the weekend.

Brad Smeele is proudly sponsored by:

Oakley
Mountain Dew
Ronix Wakeboards
Ballistics
Ju$t A Dollar

Hey. a lil late on it but here it is anyway. So the Billabong slopestyle was DOPE! i didn’t qualify for finals but it was goodtimes anyways. The finals were off the hook and you can check the MDTV clip here thanks to nzsnowboard.com.

On saturday night while the MTV party was going on with The Mint Chicks and Lupe Fiasco there was the Nixon Throwdown comp goin on behind the stage. Riders got to sessions a jump for an hour and a half or so with some breaks for tv purposes but getting towed up by the sleds was pretty sik and the jump was pretty mellow so it was fun times. The prize giving was during the Billabong/Mtv afterparty so with all the free booze flowing I almost missed getting called onto stage to claim 2nd prize which was of course a Nixon watch, all good coz my other one just ran out of battery! Was too drunk to remember who actually won but the name Tom Humphries rings a bell…. the party was the highlight tho….free Jager, free beer n wine, free cocktails and free vodka thru the ice luge sculptures!! epic night for sure cheers Billabong!

So the Billabong slopestyle promised to go off again this year. I headed down on the Wednesday night with the comp scheduled to start on the Friday. The Thursday was just horrible flat light and sheet ice the whole day. Not the ideal preparation for one of the biggest comps of the year. The weather was definitely better on the Friday and the groomer and park crew had done an amazing job to get the course soft.

There was still some pretty heavy cloud cover for most of the day and spotting your landings wasna??t the easiest. I have to admit I was lucky being in the first heat of Open Men; we just had to deal with high cloud the same as practice. Whereas the later heats had to deal with some serious visibility problems – it got so bad that the Juniors who were scheduled to run after the Open were postponed until the Saturday morning.

I didna??t have the best comp again which sucks – the level was really high this year with a lot more international riders competing. Robbie Walker qualified second overall and he dropped in front of me and threw one of the biggest ever front 10′s Snow Park has seen. I thought I had a run to get through and even with an arse check on a cab9 on the second jump I was still sitting on the bubble in 5th at the end of the first runs. 5 went through from each heat and then the next top 5 scores from all heats and unfortunately I got dragged into the soft snow in-between the jumps in my second run and didna??t post a high enough score to get through.

I think there were 5 kiwis that made it through to the finals on the Saturday. They all represented hard with Jake Koia throwing down an insane run including a huge double wildcat that put him in fourth. Mitchy Brown showed his skills extend way beyond the pipe and he threw down to get second splitting up the Americans on the podium. But little known American Eric Willet stole the show with a mind blowing switch back 10 on the big kicker.

We had a little expression session jump on the Saturday night in front of the band and I was stoked with how I rode there – kept it pretty simple with 3′s and 5′s as it was only a 35 foot jump but it was super steep and fun. Jezza thorns ended up winning a watch for his efforts over the two part jam. Tim Humphry’s who had taken third in the slope walked away with a limited edition Nixon player.

The party Saturday night was pretty crazy with performances from Lupe Fiasco, P Money, PNC and various others. I stayed sober so that I could get up early the next morn and get back to Christchurch to study. That wasn’t an easy task with copious amounts of free alcohol floating about the woolshed bar.

All in all another successful week at the Park. Pity the weather had to play its part again with snow both days. I’m heading back down Thursday morning so will be at Snow Park for a few days then over to Cardrona for the 2007 University Winter games – should be fun – hope to catch everyone over there.

This was all filmed, edited and produced in 1 DAY.

Last year’s Billabong slopestyle event was once of the best snowboard comps and after party’s I’ve ever been to, I wasn’t sure if they would be able to one-up them selves, however this years event was a completely different level. It officially was off the hook awesome.

2 days of intense competition a pretty rad slopestyle course. It consisted of either a flat-down box or a down rail into a 40-foot jump into a 70-food jump and finishes off with either a stair feature rail or a wallride. The winner of the comp landed a switch backside 1080 and one of the NZ favorites, Jake Koia was pulling his double wild-cats over the 70 footer. CRAZY! MD shredders, Tim Bathurst, Jeremy Thorns, and myself were all drinking up and throwing down in the comp while MD rider Robett Hollis was on the mic commentating with NZ original snowboard comic and all round funny guy, Zinny.

Biggest highlight of the comp was definitely the MTV (NZ’s first birthday) after party. They lit up the Snowpark skies with a huge MTV fireball logo and heaps of fireworks while the crowd of thousands bumped and grinded to The Mint Chicks, Savage, Mareko and international hip hop sensation Lupe Fiasco while around 30 pro snowboarders including 3 MD riders (Tim, Jeremy and myself) threw down their best tricks over table top booter purpose built right behind the stage.

After the main concert all the VIP’s which includes all the riders had a massive party right at the woolshed with all free food and booze. Definitely a messy night for most people.

The bottom line is: wicked comp, massive party and awesome concerts. Billabong and MTV have officially stepped it up again. Can’t wait to see what They’ll pull of next year.

Nev