Own It Is Back!!
Aberdeen Snowsports Centres’ Annual Freestyle Competition returns to the slope on Saturday 22nd October. This competition never fails to delight and this year will form part of the Lowlander series ran by Snowsports Scotland meaning not only will there be some amazing prizes up for grabs but also some all important series points.
There will be more information to come but for now here’s a wee taster of the juniors battling it out at last years event.
Check out the groms ripping it up at the sunny Radar Final in Tignes. Look out for Fin in the No 8 bib.
Fin’s efforts out at the Radar Final in Tignes showed he can represent against the groms from the rest of Europe, his effort have also got the attention of Whitelines and Fin gets a big up from their online pages. Check out the article here.
Ski and Boarder Cross – the event of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics returned to Scotland for a second time on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th March 2011 with the Western Saab Challenge, Scottish Snowcross Championships dominating the slopes at Glenshee Ski Centre.
Organised by the highly regarded Aberdeen Snowsports Club and sponsored by Saab the event is the only one of its kind to be held in the United Kingdom.
100 competitors from all over the United Kingdom raced head to head in an adrenalin and action packed knockout race along a course consisting of man-made and natural rollers, jumps, kickers and banked turns, all at high speed.
The event took many days of preparation with Glenshee Ski Centre specially cutting the track and moving hundreds of tons of snow with two dedicated piste grooming machines. A dedicated organising team of 30 volunteer officials from Aberdeen Snowsports Club, supported by Snowsport Scotland and Ian Findlay, British Ski Cross Team Manager worked for 3 days to make the course safe and competitive. Specially commissioned starting gates, similar to those used at the Vancouver Olympics, were taken to Glenshee’s Meall Odhar slopes and erected by Maritime Scaffolding of Aberdeen, a firm that specialises in building such structures in harsh environments.
Fresh spring snow made the race conditions excellent, the sun shone and with no wind the course was fast and exciting. This resulted in spectacular conditions and the sun came out on the course for the finals.
Sponsored by Saab and supported by Salomon, Zaini Hats, Red Bull, Tierney Strachan and, of course, Glenshee Ski Centre, the atmosphere on the course was electric with Red Bull pumping out the tunes on their music truck.
Experience showed through as the men’s title of The Saab Challenge Scottish Skier Cross Champion was won by British Ski Cross Team member Ed Cozzi with his first ever visit to Scotland while Gordon Skiers Coach Louise Kochalski took the gold in the ladies category.
The Saab Challenge Scottish Boarder Cross Champion men’s title was won by Glasgow rider Tim McGregor who also recorded the fastest qualifying run with a time of 59.59 seconds. The ladies title was won by Anna Richardson.
Olympians Ben Kilner and Alain Baxter added to the event with their support to the riders.
Alain Baxter, “Last year’s Championships were a great addition to the Scottish and British snow sports scene and it is fantastic to see such a prestigious sport coming to the UK. It’s great that Saab have continued to support this new event. The standard of those competing was phenomenal and it was great to see all ages enjoying the race. “
Alain Baxter and Ben Kilner with big smiles
Local rider and Olympic Snowboard Super-pipe finalist in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics Ben Kilner said: “I learned to ride at Glenshee and it was amazing to see so many young riders throwing down some excellent moves as the raced the course. Snowcross is a great event and I’m stoked that Aberdeen Snowsports Club brought this to Glenshee. I’m sure some of those we saw today will go on to greater things!”
Neil Miller of Western Saab commented: “Here at Saab, we’re really pleased to have been invited to sponsor such an exciting event. It was fantastic to work with Snowsport Scotland and Aberdeen Snowsports Club, and the Western Saab Challenge was a great way to show our innovation and represent our Scandinavian heritage.”
Iain Findlay, British Ski Cross Team Manager said, “It’s been great assisting Aberdeen Snowsports Club with this event. That a local club can put together and organise a race of such quality is superb, raises the profile of Boarder and Ski Cross in the country and provides a genuine pathway for those wanting to enter the sport.”
Neil Cameron, Chairman of Aberdeen Snowsports Club, commented: “We were delighted with the success of last year’s event and were thrilled to run it for a second year with the support of Saab and all our other supporters. I hope that everyone who took part had a great time and we’re already looking forward to next year’s event.”
For a full listing of results click here for ski and snowboard.
For more photos click here
Back in January Quiksilver launched Radar:
Star detector, talent spotter, dream creator, the Quiksilver & Roxy Radar is finally coming! Quiksilver launches the new edition of an unpublished event: finding the kid and the girl who will work in the steps of Mathieu Crepel or Torah Bright, both members of the Quiksilver and Roxy’s team. Quiksilver & Roxy Radar, an european event is opened for all kids and girls aged between 8 and 14 years old, will enable to the best skier and best snowboarder to sign for one year to be part of the wonderful team, win a summer camp’s week and many other goodies. Don’t let anyone take your place in history, and so join fast !
Roll round March and our very own Fin Bremner is one of the finalists for the search for the next snowboarding superstars, and they’ll be heading to the Winter X Games to compete in the Radar Final on Friday at 3pm.
AMAZING!!! – well done Fin, we are super stoked for you, big congrats also to Monty Right the UK skier who made it through.
Fin is Currently in Tignes getting some all important snow time ahead of the Final on Friday. You can send him all your high fives via facebook and we’ll hopefully get a run down of the event from Fin on his return. Big thanks to all of our members / readers who voted for Fin and helped him along on his amazing journey..
You can watch the video that got him to the Final here.
Here’s a full list of the lucky finalists:
- Marie Chevalley, Switzerland, Ski Woman
- Amanda Gustavsson, Sweden, Ski Woman
- Thalie Larochaix, France, Snow Woman
- Hanne Eilertsen, Norway, Snow Woman
- Mathias Eckhoff, Norway, Snow
- Sacha Moretti, France, Snow Man
- Bing Voorham, Andorra, Snow Man
- Merlin Surget, France, Snow Man
- Jaime Castro Pelegrina, Spain, Snow Man
- Fin Bremner, UK, Snow Man
- Tom Damiani, France, Ski Man
- Jens Johnsen, Norway, Ski Man
- Monty Right, UK, Ski Man
- Nik Podrebsek, Slovenia, Ski Man
- Axel Chemarin, France, Ski Man
- Niccolo Cominelli, Italy, Ski Man
- Pavol Kuric, Slovakia, Ski Man
- Jesper Tragardh, Sweden, Ski Man
Congratulations to everyone above! And the UK selections; Fin and Monty!
But also, well done to all the kids who made it to the Happy Riding Days around Europe. It was great to see lots of grom talent on the scene!!
Voting is now live for the Quiksilver Radar competition, you can watch Fins video and vote by following this link.
Fin wrote us a little piece about his day so here we are:
Fins Quiksilver Radar Tale
Nicol handed me a Quiksilver Radar flyer on a Wednesday night and told me to enter and see how it goes. …. So I submitted a few photos and a very short video clip to the Quiksilver email on the flyer.
A few weeks later I had an email asking me where I would be able to attend a happy riding day- I was through to the next round!! All the happy riding days were in France, Italy or Spain but Quiksilver then added a happy riding day to be held in the UK it was only a week away – I was stoked! It meant a long journey in the car down to Tamworth but I knew it would be worth it. I had made it down to the final 9 in the UK it was a mix of boarders and skiers. The finalists list was released and I had met most of the riders who had made the cut, I knew the standard would be high.
After a tiring trip that lasted 9 hours we arrived in the early hours of Saturday morning. The hotel was in spitting distance of the dome!
The jam session didn’t start until 10pm on Saturday, and it was torture waiting but watching the set up and having dinner with the other 8 finalists Josh Knox, Tom Knox (they were filming our edits) Hannah from Quiksilver and Christian Stevenson (who was the MC at Freeze this year) I knew it was going to be a rad night!
We all shredded hard until 1am getting our best tricks filmed for our edits. I managed to bag myself a few prizes along the way. One of them for landing 3 front flips off the Tamworth kicker. I came home from Tamworth with no regrets and had a great experience.
These uploads will be judged by the public and pros, with the winner gaining an invite to the X Games European grand final in Tignes next month.
So please vote for me at http://quiksilverlive.com/radar11/rider.140.php
Click on radar and vote for my edit to help me get to the finals in Tignes- the week of the X games!
Check out Fin on Stv
Go in about 19min 50 to get to Fin being interviewed at the Slope. It’s a great wee piece and well done to Fin for representing… nice one.
The event of the Season – This weekends’ Snow – X championships is shaping up to be a bumper event and it’s not too late to get involved. This year the event will be held at Glenshee and runs on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th. An Aberdeen Snowsports Club organised and Snowsports Scotland endorsed event there are medals and trophies to be bagged, plus great prizes from Zaini Hats and Salomon including a pair of skis and a snowboard to the highest ranked skier and boarder who races with Salomon kit!
Pre-registration is available and you’ll get £5 off your lift ticket for your efforts. You can find more information on the facebook events page here, or the Aberdeen Snowsports Club website where you can also pre-register.
You’ll find loads of reports on last years event on these pages and I’m sure it’ll wet you’re appetitie to get involved. The forecast is bang on with sunshine and no wind – remember your suncream and have an awesome time…
Check out the footage from the Scottish Indoor Champs held at Sno!Zone.
Team Aberdeen Results
With some hot competition to contend with the Team did well and most importantly had a great time, the Nike 6.0 stair set went down a treat. Nice one guys. Next up will be the Highlander rounds of the Freestyle Series so better get some snow time in…
Snowboard
Lara Wood – 3rd in the Womens combined
Emmet Strachan 3rd in the Jr Category
Fin Bremner 4th in the Jr Category
Ski
Grant Donald 3rd – Youth Category
Keilan Bremner 4th – Jr Category
Full listing of results can be found here.
The Snowsport Scotland Invitational – SNO!zone Rail Jam on Friday 10 December has been declared an outstanding success. This was a completely new event, organised by ski-scotland partners Snowsport Scotland and SNO!zone, Scotland’s only real-snow, year-round snowsports centre. It was also the first time that a major winter snowsports competition had been held in Edinburgh city centre. The event, held at the Ross Arena in West Prices Street Gardens, attracted Scotland’s elite freestyle snow athletes on both skis and snowboards who battled it out for a combined prize fund of £1,000 in front of hundreds of spectators.
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[Photos property of Demotix - where you can find more photos and further reports of the event]
“Our event was an enormous success on Friday evening,” said David Rutledge of Snowsport Scotland. “We are grateful to our partners, particularly SNO!zone whose shaping crew produced a world-class competitive freestyle set-up. We’d also like to thank all the riders and also the volunteers who made this event possible by shovelling snow to build the set-up, set up the lights and sound system and made countless bacon rolls!”
The set-up provided for competitors comprised a down street rail, a launch log to 10ft gap and a rainbow box to suicide drop, all on natural snow. The atmosphere was absolutely electric, with spectators watching the event from Princes Street and the Gardens themselves. The MC kept everyone up-to-date with the tricks, thrills and spills as the action unfolded. Prizes of £300 (first), £150 (second) and £50 (third) were awarded as follows:
Skiing: 1 Chris McCormick, 2 Harris Booth, 3 Cameron Nicol
Board: 1 Stuart Horsham, 2 Danny McCormick, 3 Ed Grieg.
Special Oakley prize packs were also awarded to the “stand out” girls: Anna Vincent (ski), Helen Fox (board) and Sophie Addison (board).
“We hope that these prizes will go some way to help support these young freestyle stars of the future,” added David. “We are already planning an even bigger and better event for next year to thrill Edinburgh’s skiers, boarders and Christmas shoppers. We’re also hoping that some of this year’s spectators will be encouraged to try snowsports for themselves – although it’s now thawing in the Central Belt and by the sea, there’s still great snow at SNO!zone and at Scotland’s mountain ski areas, with four of the five of them open this weekend.”
Here’s a wee first edit too by Neil Walker.
When the Bearsden Westbeach Comp was cancelled due to wait for it – too much snow everywhere!! We were all gutted but those clever heads at Westbeach came up with the rad idea to get you all out jibbing obstacles in your own snowed-in back yards. The entries are great, funny little clips of people jibbing grit bins, park benches, whatever could be found out and about. Check out the videos here.
The results are now in and a couple of Aberdeen Locals will be getting their hands on some more awesome Westbeach prizes. Lara Wood came in 1st for the Ladies Snowboard Under 16′s, Fin Bremner came in 2nd in the Under 16′s Males and Ben Venn 2nd in the Mens. Well done to everyone who took the time to enter – check out their clips below!
Lara Wood –
Fin Bremner –
Ben Venn – here
Wee Keilan also got quite a few facebook rumblings for his Grrrrit Bin effort – love it.
Keilan –
Click to see the full listing of Results.
Remember if you are between 8 and 14 and have some video clips you can enter the Quiksilver Radar comp – see here for more info.
