Nationals Trip

Bonjour mes amis,

I'm back from what turned out to be an awesome trip. I could go on and on about it, so much cool stuff has happened since my last post. Instead of boring you with my random stories I'll cut to the chase of the snowboarding.

The first day we were there to get used to the conditions and the mountain. After a late start getting everything organized in the morning, we found out that the halfpipe would actually be open that afternoon. We had heard rumors that the pipe wouldn't be... up to standard, but I was optimistic that the organizers would make it good for the Nationals. Well it turned out that the rumors were true, the walls were smaller that we were used to, not to mention somewhat inconsistent and very difficult to ride.

Someone smart once said "In the midst of difficulty lies opportunity." With this quote in mind I trained that pipe like there was no tomorrow. It took me the good part of the first day to get used to riding the pipe. The next day was the official training, the day before the contest. There was only two hours to get ready for the biggest pipe competition of the year, so I made the most of it. I was one of the first people to drop into the pipe and one of the last to leave. By the end of it, I was linking some tricks that I had seldom landed before. I was feeling really good going into the competition and had a run in mind that was far better than anything I've landed before.

The format of the Nationals is the usual best of 2 years for qualifiers. The top 6 men in the 2 heats (of about 27) make it to the finals. With this in mind, I knew I would need to through down something amazing in order to make it to the finals. On my first run I landed everything but it wasn't very smooth and my amplitude wasn't that great. Bellow is the footage of my second. I was going for it and the first 2 tricks were going well, but I couldn't hold on to my seven. As you can see I went down, and so did my chance of making the finals. My first run scored 29.9 and I needed a 33.0 to make it in. It was tough to be so close and have to miss finals again this year. On the bright side, I learned some new tricks and I now feel like I have the foundation to beat the best riders in Canada.

For now I'm back to training and now is the best time of year to learn new tricks. I went riding at Grouse today for my first time ever, with Kyle and Sam. It was sunny and so fun. We did some filming with Sam's point and shoot camera so I'll put something up when we finish editing it. I have one more competition this year later in the month, the Telus Festival superpipe in Whistler, they joined up with the Grenade Games this year which could be really cool or ... well hopefully it's awesome.

Check out some photos from my trip, some from Mont Tremblant and some from Montreal. They have some nice views and cool old buildings.