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Posted on Thursday September 9th at 8:27 p.m.
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Before the season begun this year I received a call from an old friend in the UK who rides on the British SBX team. After a quick ‘how are ya' catch up he told me a small UK junior team were planning on heading down for the Junior Worlds and that they needed an extra coach for a few days.
Seemingly, two snowboard events were scheduled for the same time at different resorts - SBX at Cardies and Slopestyle at Snowpark. Jimbo, the British Head Coach, specialises in SBX and as that was where the majority of their athletes were competing he was planning to stay focusing on that discipline. Lewis, the one kid planning to compete in Slopestyle needed a coach and they managed to get my name.
Being a Brit originally it was nice to connect with my roots and give a little back to where it all began for me. Lewis and I worked together for three days. He's 15 years old and it was his first time at the Junior Worlds, so we kept our expectations mellow. We spent two days sussing his run out and then... hammer time!
The setup went like this...
- Rail feature: choice of a flat bar or flat box
- Jump 1: 35 footer
- Jump 2: 45 footer
- Jump 3: 65 footer
- Rail/jib feature: up box or a water tank jib
The run we planned for Lewis was:
- front board on the flat bar, out regular
- backside 5 indy
- cab 5 mute
- fontside 7 tail
- tail slide, 270 out
With the competition format having no semi finals and only the top 6 of each heat (about 37 competitors in each), we knew this was unlikely to get him to the finals. If he managed to stick his first run, we planned to step-up his second to 7 - 5 - 9.
Unfortunately, Lewis fell early in his first run. On his second, he rode so well, sticking everything until... his frontside 7 tail over the 65 footer. He rode in with so much confidence and way too much speed. He span. He held the grab. And he kept going. The kid went huge - ended up spinning 900 and landing right at the bottom of the transition on his nose - which of course snapped in the process.
All-in-all Lewis rode well considering it was his first time down here and his first time competing at the Junior Worlds. I should also mention that the podium finishers are all top competitors in the TTR series, so it was a pretty high level.
Ben Comber was the only Kiwi to make the finals, and he even he qualified first. Read more about it here.
