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.

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